Artist's Statement:
I am captivated by light cascading over shapes, and fascinated by the interplay of light and shadow which both reveals and obscures, carving form and describing color. The challenge to translate these qualities into a painting, while striving to balance the formal art-making concerns of composition, rhythm, color balance, lost and found edges gives each of my pieces its particular character and flavor.
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Born in Savannah, Georgia and raised throughout the United States and Europe, Alex currently calls home a 17th century millhouse complex, located along a meandering stream in the small village in Germany near the border with France.
A variety of influences and life events shaped Alex's work, causing it to grow, mature and transform. While attaining her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Drawing and Painting at the University of Georgia in the early '70s, Alex's art centered on large abstracts and semi-representative figurative subjects in oil. Fascinated with the beauty of human anatomy, Alex completed a Masters of Art degree in Medical & Biological Illustration at the University of California, San Francisco in 1985.
Alex worked for eight years as a medical illustrator for the U.S. government. As her career grew she moved from illustration into supervision and management. During those years she focused in her "free" time on her passion for painting and her concern for endangered species by completing a series of very tightly rendered dry-brush watercolor wildlife artworks. Frustrated by the lack of time she could dedicate to her creative gift and true love, Alex made the hard choice. In 1993 Alexandrine Bartlett left a successful career as a Medical Illustrator and dedicated her life, vision and spirit to the expression of beauty through painting as full-time artist. At the suggestion of master painter and mentor Albert Handell, Alex tried pastels in 1997 and the result transformed her work. The brilliancy and immediacy of pastels dramatically affected both how and what Alex painted.
Her recent works focus on the luminous quality of light both in landscape and still life paintings. Alex's children (her paintings) are "Paintings from the Heart," with the objective being to engage and elicit delight in the viewer. Alex wants her paintings to "breathe" and hopes they embody the phrase "Beauty brought to Life." Alex's pastels have garnered recognition and won awards in numerous national and international juried art shows. Twice yearly she shows new works in Germany. Alex holds signature membership in The Pastel Society of American and is a founding member of the Portrait Society of America.
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