Bio

Alexa Black is an artist of mixed Nahua, Maya and Irish heritage creating as a guest on traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples, including the Xwməθkwəyə̓ m (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Through self-taught explorations in photography, drawing, painting and mixed media arts, Alexa found her passion deeply embedded in antiquated techniques of photography and classical illustration. Enamoured with the wetplate collodion process, she learned the foundations through a 3-day workshop with Quinn Jacobsen in 2015 and was later able to develop her drawing through a 9 month sponsorship at the Barcelona Academy of Art. Black seeks to reveal the magic of hidden realms that exist in parallel to our terrestrial and colonially defined reality. Her art is ignited by the energies of her indigenous ancestral territories, animism, and being an ally to marginalized populations. The work is built by reconnecting the seams of her fractured identities, by reclaiming and amplifying the voices of her silenced ancestors from matrilineal blood lines. Black divines dreams and visions shrouded in haunting atmospheric aesthetics that are symbolic of life's beauty and cosmic initiations. Her work is primarily dedicated to deconstructing the disconnected and damaged societal tissue imposed by colonial standards of living. Alexa has been a featured artist in galleries across BC and internationally in Los Angeles. Recently she was awarded the Concept to Realization Grant by the Canada Council of the Arts and Native Earth’s 40 seeds for 40 Seasons award to produce her upcoming 78 piece innovative and intersectional tintype/mixed media oracle deck, inspired by the traditional tarot deck. This evolving body of work is to be featured in SEITIES analogue print publication and shown in Toronto at Weesageechak 35 this fall.