ALEXIS ENGLAND

Wavering between her talents in both art and music, England enrolled in the York Academy of Arts at 17. As music quickly began to demand more of her time she dedicated the first chapter of her artistic life to her voice, moving to Los Angeles where she rose to the top of her field performing and recording with Stevie Wonder, Mavis Staples, Sergio Mendez, to name a few.

Returning East and to her art, she briefly attended the Art Students League in New York City subsequently establishing a studio in her preferred environment of upstate New York. There she works simultaneously on what she calls her “straight gig” — coveted animal portraits — and her “personal” work, nature-based expressive paintings that hover between abstraction and familiar form.

STATEMENT:

“It fascinates me that one infinitesimal mark, one bold stroke can change everything. What is that? How a particular seemingly unimportant moment in a painting can universally speak is at the heart of it all. The thing of a strict palette is the focus it puts on everything else. The details. Limiting myself—working with say only two colors—is exhilarating and perfect to me, shapes and gestures feel like a language, like hieroglyphics, open to interpretation and endless emotions. The expressions through gesture and line, a thousand tiny but crucial decisions. I am obsessed with oppositions: action/calm, hard/ delicate, addition/subtraction. Spontaneity followed by precision. Extinction is a theme in my work. A warning. Nature can only take so much, yet for me It’s really beauty before message. Any commentary is there to be found — I’m not motivated by a need to disrupt, or bullshit or challenge the viewer. I like making beauty.”