Go to The National
Image: Sarah Rowlands
Jen Alexandra presents her solo exhibition, Tie nine, to my design – at The National – the final work in a series of nine, taking the form of a nine-knot spell. Bronzed Lavender, copper, glass and scent act as channels for intention that hold the project’s accumulated stories in a single charged space.
Jen Alexandra’s practice combines sculpture, installation and performance to explore the artists role as querent, and the relationships between human and non-human. She proposes that art can connect with other realms of experience, interpret visions, or serve as a mode of knowledge itself. Objects, floating ontologically as artefacts and channels for intention, act as transitional objects between places. For Alexandra, folklore, nature-based worship and seasonal lore are ways to understand notions of spirit through studio-focused intuitive technologies approaching the unseen and spiritual as both a platform and tool for expanding understanding of creative practice and acts of devotion.
Jen lives in Ōtautahi Christchurch where she completed an MFA at the University of Canterbury in 2018. She participated in the Taitung County Artist’s Exchange Programme (2019) in Taiwan, contributed to the Speaking surfaces project at ST PAUL St Gallery (2020), and was an Asia New Zealand Arts Practitioner Fund grant recipient (2023). Recent solo projects include, The Veil is Thin, Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū (2021/22), Sisterly at The Dowse Museum (2023) and Tie One, The Spells Begun, The Suter Art Gallery Te Aratoi o Whakatū (2024), Tie Six, It’s a Magic Fix Artist in Residence, Art Island Centre, Naoshima, Japan, Tie Three So it Shall Be, The Ilam Campus Gallery, Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha University of Canterbury. Jen was the Olivia Spencer Bower Awardee for 2024.
Tie nine, to my design was developed for doctoral thesis, A Spell for Making or Making for a Spell, at Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha, University of Canterbury. The thesis asks how the application of intuitive technologies in studio practice can focus and expand the creative act as devoted disruption.
The exhibition runs 3-25 July.
Exhibition developed with support from Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha, University of Canterbury