My strengths..
I like to think I’m quite pragmatic, I enjoy finding solutions to things in creative and practical ways. I’m observant and I find such joy in noticing and celebrating the small things.
Alexia Vogel is a South African, Cape Town based painter who graduated from the Michaelis School of Fine Art in 2013. Her process driven practice thrives on the exploration of paint and colour, relying on instinctual and spontaneous mark-making as well as the organic fall and drip of paint on the work’s surface.
Drifting between abstraction and figuration, Alexia plays within the realm of the landscape; creating dreamy, lush scapes of foliage while slipping into unknown spaces of uncontained flurries. Alexia is interested in the notion of immersion and getting lost or enveloped in a thought or feeling. Her works aim to take hold of the viewer and invite them into a space that is of void of time and location, allowing them to create their own associations and imaginative experiences.
Alexia has had four solo exhibitions with Barnard in Cape Town, as well as participated in various group shows and international and South African Art Fairs. In 2016, Alexia had a solo presentation, ‘Yonder’ with M Contemporary in Sydney. In 2018, she was invited to her first residency with SAFFCA (Southern African Foundation for Contemporary Art) where she spent 2.5 months painting in the historical village of Saint Émilion in France. Alexia was meant to partake in her second residency in 2020 at MI-LAB (Mokuhanga Innovation Laboratory) in Lake Kawaguchi, Japan. The course has since been deferred to 2021.
I paint because..
It’s what comes naturally to me. I rarely have a better answer for that question than admitting that I just love it so much. I learn something new all the time about paint itself and colour and I find it a great privilege to be able to paint every day. I get quite immersed in my work, especially when I paint on large canvases; I really hope to transfer that feeling of immersion into the paintings themselves.
Places I go..
The mountain, the forest, the jungle, my parents garden, the sea, dams, parks, cafes, greenbelts, promenades, vineyards. I love the outdoors and although I don’t work directly from the things I see daily, they definitely imprint in my mind and find their way onto the canvas, if not figuratively then just the feeling they bring me.
Sounds I love..
Birdsong (except Hadedas), the very long iron ore train that comes past my studio window, water flowing in a stream or waterfall, piano music, a crackling fire in a fireplace, Lana del Rey’s voice, bees, brushstrokes.
I hope..
That we all take the lessons of 2020 seriously and try to make at least one good, small but impactful change in our lives.
November 16, 2020
