The Alabama Center for the Arts is pleased to announce its newest art exhibit, “Passages: 2015-2020,” which features acclaimed artist and Alabama Center for the Arts alumna Brooke P. Alexander. The exhibit will be on display July 8 through August 26 in the Center’s Main Gallery.
“Passages: 2015-2020” includes paintings that represent Alexander’s career through graduate school and into the art profession as a painter and teacher, showcasing an artistic journey with its successes, failures, and growth.
Influenced heavily by literature, Brooke P. Alexander says although a specific writer’s presence is not always obvious, the narrative element within her paintings is evident. “My mind often lives somewhere between the words and paint,” she said. “The structure of William Faulkner’s novels inspired placement, juxtaposition, and perspective in Discerned Obliquities. Poets such as Emily Dickinson, whose words are used as a title for I died for Beauty, help me understand how to elevate the mundane. The moments and imaginings of every day capture my attention much more than the sensational.”
Alexander relies on all her senses – rather than vision alone – to inspect subject matter and connect with it, affording her multiple points of view. “The information before me is vast, and I, as the editor, have the privilege to dictate what elements I show my viewers and which I conceal from them,” she said. “When painting from life, the only way to distill the moment is to capture it in paint. Light changes, models move, flowers die. There is beauty in such urgency.”
Brooke P. Alexander, born and raised in Athens, Alabama, attended both Calhoun Community College and Athens State University, representing a tremendous success story for the Alabama Center for the Arts. She completed her Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art with a minor in English from Athens State in 2015. Alexander then moved to Oxford, Mississippi, and received her Master of Fine Arts in Studio Art with a concentration in Painting from the University of Mississippi in May 2018. She currently lives in Oxford and teaches as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Ole Miss. Her work has been featured both regionally and nationally.
“Passages: 2015-2020” will be featured in the Alabama Center for the Art’s Main Gallery July 8 through August 26. Admission to the exhibit is free and open to the public. For more information about Brooke P. Alexander and her art, please visit www.brookepalexander.com.