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Painting (MA)

Alexis Lee

Alexis Lee (b. 1992 Los Angeles, CA) is an American painter and sculptor who explores the collective and personal unconscious in contemporary mythology and folklore. Her work uses gesture and resistance to form lines of destruction that collapse order, and tell stories of their creation.  

Education:

-BFA,  Cornell University, 2014

-MA Painting, Royal College of Art,  2020

Group Exhibitions:

-2020 Final, Not Over, Unit 1 Gallery, London

-2020 SNAPSHOT, Hockney Gallery, London 

-2019 Work in Progress Show, Royal College of Art, London

-2014 Neon - Oral - Abîmes, Olive Tjaden Gallery, Ithaca, NY

-2013 Dos and Donuts, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY

-2013 fff, Olive Tjaden Gallery, Ithaca, NY

-2013 Cornell in Rome, Palazzo Santacroce, Rome, Italy

-2012, The Robert F. Bean Show,  Cornell University, Ithaca, NY


For further enquiries, please contact the artist- alexis.aciel@gmail.com

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Degree Details

School of Arts & Humanities

Painting (MA)

Coincidentia Oppositorum:

a state in which contradictory essences co-exist in a human reality. In essence, it describes the ancestral mind in which belief and reality do not negate one another, but  enhance the experience of living.  

These unprecedented times plunge us into realms of the unknown, beckoning us away from reason and light. As we fall into this gap of human understanding, we witness the destructive energies that dwell in the unconscious and fill us with despair and anger. But these disturbances also awaken profound and ancient abilities, buried in the collective unconscious- the universal sitting at the bottom of our psyche. Their ripples herald a primal return to symbols, storytelling and Coincidentia Oppositorum. Here, incandescent Chaos endeavors to reshape finite reality in darkness. Here, we begin to create landscapes for the monstrous thoughts that threaten to shatter our mortal frame, in worlds apart from ours- in myth.

This collection of work produced at the RCA reflects stages of the universal pattern in the monomyth Joseph Campbell called the Hero's Journey: 

Departure - Divine Guidance - Crossing the Threshold - Trial - Transformation - Apotheosis - The Return

Aceso

Black Tears

Detail of 'Aceso'

Detail of 'Aceso'

Detail of 'Black Tears'

Detail of 'Black Tears'

Detail of 'The Leperd'

Cinema Triptych

The Leperd

The Cinema Triptych looks to film as a contemporary engine for mythology. It is a collection of memories from movies that use storytelling to subliminally transform performance into truth or fact. In time, the spectator creates individualized patterns in conversation with the visual narrative, enhanced by personal experience and imagination. This particular work focuses on illness and healing:


“The Leperd” is based on images of leprosy in cinema. The bearer imparts his disease through touch and has deformed extremities and facial features. He is the disease itself and is surrounded by foliage and a leopard inspired by medieval illuminations. Personally, it represents the first traumatic childhood memory from film; it embodies the infant association of leopards with the disease as well as its historic frame.

..

“Aceso” is the tapestry of cures. A body claimed by religion, insects, and needles, and medicines. Aceso was the Greek embodiment for the process of curing rather than a healer or panacea. 

..

“Black Tears” tells the story of Plague. The Bird sits on the shoulder of illness. He is a harbinger, an omen, carrying the face of a plague mask worn by doctors during times of Bubonic plague.

Medium:

Acrylic on Board

Size:

80 x 180 x 2 cm
acryliccarvingcinemacontemporary mythcutshealingillnessknife paintingmythologysubconscioustriptychtruth

Witnesses

Witnesses

Witnesses

Witnesses

Witnesses

Witnesses Detail

Faces pulled into consciousness remain frozen in their transition from formlessness to form. Freeing fingers and toes, pricking open ears and shaping crude spines, they witness the violence of their own making.

Medium:

Clay

Size:

Varies

Encountering Mercurius

Mercurius-Against Light

Detail of Mercurius

The Mercurius Duplex is the vessel of opposites, the alchemical body of creative and destructive energies in constant motion.

Medium:

Acrylic and Oil Pastel on Canvas

Size:

100 x 76 x 4 cm

The Shadow Whispers Secrets

The Shadow Whispers Secrets

Detail

Detail

Medium:

Acrylic on Board

Size:

80 x 60 cm

The Titan and the Sphinx

Detail

Apotheosis of the Titan and the Sphinx
Apotheosis of the Titan and the Sphinx

Apotheosis of the Titan and the Sphinx

The Titan is a symbol of earthly, brute strength and the chaos of nature at the beginning of creation. In Ancient Greece, they were the ancestral pantheon of gods. In Buddhist scriptures, they are Asuras constantly at war, marked by jealousy and overwhelming ambition; they represent states of consciousness.

The Sphinx is a monster, an oracle and a guardian. In its Egyptian and Greek iterations, it represents the destructive emptiness of absolute power and a gateway to another dimension.

Medium:

Embroidery, Acrylic, Oil, Watercolor and Paper on Canvas

Size:

100 x 136 cm

Exaltation of a Named Theos

Detail

Exaltation of the Named Theos

Medium:

Acrylic on Board

Size:

80 x 60 x 2cm

TheBirdkeeper Detail 1

TheBirdkeeper Detail

Medium:

Acrylic and Pastel on Linen

Size:

131 x 88 cm

Mother

The Minotaur

The Hunter

The Guardian

The Faer are iterations of chimeric fairies and divine animals. They represent a curious future, marked by a return to the ancestral practice of making symbols.

Fairies are referenced in many cultures. They were believed to be demoted angels, minor pagan deities, sprits of the dead or small imps and demons. In reference to the time and location of their stories, they were either blamed for maladies and misfortune or symbolic of good luck and supernatural aid.

Medium:

Watercolor on Paper

Size:

31x 23 cm

The Seer

Medium:

Acrylic and Pastel on Board

Size:

80 x 60 cm

Apophis returns the Cosmic Water

Detail

Detail

Detail

Apophis was a serpent and the chief embodiment of primordial chaos in Egyptian mythology. As this antagonistic entity, he was present in every access of darkness- the waning of the moon, the eclipse and most importantly, the onset and end of night. His primary goal was to hinder the god Ra on his daily journey of bringing the sun across the sky. In order for day to break, Apophis would have to die each day. Pierced by Ra and lesser gods, Apophis would release the cosmic waters allowing the heavenly boat to continue its path. Apophis would unwittingly transform daily into the conduit for light.

Medium:

Pastel on Engraved Paper

Size:

57 x 76 cm

Transformation of the Bird Catcher

Detail

Medium:

Oil on Canvas

Size:

150 x 120 cm

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