Artist Statment & Bio
Alxzyndria is a New England native multi media artist who is currently planting her roots in the Bay Area, California.
From a young age, Alxzyndria was exposed to various forms of expression ranging from photography, abstract painting, and sculpting by her teachers and family. As her passion developed, she discovered a unique fondness for Eastern philosophies and cultures.
At age 19, she grew a profound admiration for the artistic qualities of Mandarin, Chinese and began to teach herself the language.
Alxzyndria was deeply moved by the beauty of Chinese characters as well as their history and ancient to modern development. The more she learned, the more she fell in love with the language. In 2011, she moved to China on a full Chinese Government Scholarship (hosted by the Chinese Scholarship Committee, CSC).
From 2011-2012 she studied Mandarin, Chinese at 南京师范大学 Nanjing Normal University in Nanjing, China. And from 2012-2014 she studied Philosophy at 东南大学 Southeast University. While in China, she became deeply influenced by Daoism 道, Fengshui 风水, and living by the dualities of life as well as by Chinese artists like Qiu Zhijie, Zhang huan, and ancient Han and Uyghur paintings and sculptures that decorate the country's parks, museums and schools.
After settling into the new culture, Alxzyndria began pursuing enhancing her portraiture technique by painting women. She wanted to connect with Yin 阴 (feminine) qualities of expression while working with watercolor, pen, and ink as influenced by traditional Chinese painting. It was her goal in her creative expressions to find a balance between her Western, Yang 阳 (masculine) upbringing and her new Eastern life. Alxzyndria would then spend 8 years of her life devoted to assimilating to Chinese culture and gaining experience as an educator.
Alxzyndria has been deeply influenced by natural forms of healing through yoga, meditation, and art as a healing modality. While she studied in China, she simultaneously worked as an English teacher. While teaching, she devoted a significant amount of time, using her learnings from art as a healing modality, to teach children art. The intention was to help children to alleviate the daily stresses they faced in a very competitive educational environment.
While living abroad, Alxzyndria had recognized that in order to fully adapt to a new culture one must shed all that one knew of their home and surrender to what is present. It was during this time that Alxzyndria began to incorporate poetry, Mandarin characters, and natural representations of flora into her artwork. Still maintaining abstract integrity, her artwork grew into a fluid spiritual representation of her time learning what it meant to live at one with the dualistic cycles of nature and life.
In 2018, Alxzyndria moved to the Bay Area, California where she currently resides with her partner. She is currently studying Studio Arts -AAT at Berkeley City College. She spends her free time developing her many passions, and has most recently completed and received a 200hr registered yoga teaching certificate.