Forbidden Garden: Oil Painting
This series is the artist’s discourse on such themes as the vulnerability of the human body, the fear of death, and the desire for immortality. The name Forbidden Garden correlates us to the realization that our body remains a mystery and that it scares us.
I started this project in a very difficult period for myself. This work was psychotherapy for me. The immersion in another world, the attention to details, the dark colors helped me cope with my condition. I take parts of the works of Baroque masters and deconstruct them, deprive them of color or fragment in my Forbidden Garden series. Strictly following the technique of the old masters, I do a grisaille. My task is to rethink and update these works for the contemporary public.
Aleksandra graduated from Surivov’s Art Institute and received her PhD in fine art in Moscow, Russia. Now she lives and works in London. She has exhibited her works in solo and group shows in the UK and internationally. Most recently, she did a solo show at the ecological festival, “KronFest,” in 2019, and participated in The Other Art Fair 2019, Los Angeles. Aleksandra’s works are held in the museum collection at Moscow Museum of Decorative Arts, Vladimir State Art Museum, Khanty-Mansiysk State Art Museum, Museum of the World Ocean, as well as in private collections internationally. Her works have also been featured in notable publications such as the Evening Standard, London, 2019.
She was in residency: As Cite International des Art, Paris 2008, 2010, 2014, 2016 and 2017; SIM residence, Iceland, 2014; and SIM residence, Berlin, 2016. Aleksandra also worked from 2005-2018 as a professor of a contemporary art department in Moscow Art School, “Detail” from 2008-2017, and she was an invited professor in International Art university, Junjou, China, 2012.
