Biography

Alexandra is a multi-disciplinary artist whose current work includes textile wall-hangings, sculpture, painting, collage and drawing.

Her artistic quest is to find a balance between Modernist ideals of order and universal abstraction as exemplified by Mondrian with the joys, sorrows and frustrations of personal and domestic life.

As a feminist, she embraces artforms traditionally associated with women, such as stitch and textile art, but, she also paints, sculpts, and in the past made installations and performances. She does not like to isolate one artform from another but sees them as a continuum: a textile piece can flow into a painting, a painting into a sculpture. Underlying all these artforms is the continuous thread of drawing. Whether this be the natural or man-made environment, drawing acts as a meditation and as source of ideas to be developed into finished artworks.

Alexandra is an artist who believes in a spiritual dimension but whose faith is continually being tested by intellectual doubt and the intrusions of personal and domestic life. This dilemma is explored in her work, both as subject matter and in the visual language itself. Abstraction, inherited from the pioneering Modernists, has a purity untainted by the personal, but to concentrate just on that would be untruthful to the way life is. Alexandra wants to make an art of wholeness, giving value to the personal and the domestic.

The resulting visual language is one in which abstraction and figuration interact, working out their relationship in the art itself, and in the process transforming the personal into something meaningful and the universal into something personal.

Alexandra’s experimental attitude to materials and artistic practises is grounded in her knowledge of art history, a subject she has lectured on for twenty years. She is well aware of the difficulties of making something original today, but with the help from her artist heroes, artist friends and thinkers, she continues to experiment, develop and give shape to her ideas, feelings and intuitions.

Piet Mondrian Composition in red, yellow and blue

Piet Mondrian, “Composition in red, yellow and blue”, 1930, oil on canvas, 46 x 46cm, Kunsthaus Zurich

Domestic Landscape by Alexandra Drysdale

Drysdale, “Domestic Landscape”, 2020, 163 x 70 x 20cm

Chronology

EDUCATION

1981-1985          1st BA (Hons) Fine Art, Chelsea School of Art, London

1986-1988          Merit Scholarship, Art Students League, New York

2009-2011          MFA, Cambridge School of Art, Anglia Ruskin University

 

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2018                The Artefacts of Alexandra Drysdale: Casespace, Bruton Museum, Somerset

2016                LMP Gallery, London

2011                Down to Earth, Artspace, Cambridge  Watch ‘Down To Earth’ video

2011                Easter Art, Michaelhouse, Cambridge

2010                A.R.T., Changing Spaces, Cambridge

2010                Artspace, Cambridge

2007                Mary Magdalene, Lady Chapel, Ely Cathedral

2003                New Hall, Cambridge

1996                Gainsborough’s House, Sudbury, Suffolk

 

TWO PERSON EXHIBITIONS

2021                Launch of Pitcombe Studio, Bruton, Somerset, BA10 0PE

2021                Somerset Open Studios, Pitcombe, Bruton

2016                Cambridge Open Studios

2014                Hierarcadia: Approximating Naivety, Art Language Location, Cambridge, live performance with Ernest Dalton

2012                On the Shelf, with Kato Catling, Makers Gallery, Cambridge

2010                Duo, Drysdale and Juett, Williams Art, Cambridge

1997                Peterborough City Art Gallery with Eliza Bonham-Carter

1996                 Galerie Josine Bokhoven, Amsterdam with Sylvia ten Kley

 

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2021                 OCAS Biennale, Project Space, 183-185 Bermondsey St, London, SE1 3UW

2019                 Zigzag, Glastonbury, Somerset Artweeks

2016                 The Expanded Studio, Primary Studios Nottingham

2014                 Peep Show, Changing Spaces, Cambridge

2013                 The Expanded Studio, Wysing Arts Centre, Bourn, Cambs.

2013                  Art Language Location, Cambridge, artlanguagelocation.org

2012                  One Hundred, Changing Spaces, Cambridge

2011                  Plinth, Ruskin Gallery, Cambridge School of Art

2011                  If not now whenever, The Gallery, Redchurch St, London.

2011                  Re:Location, St. Peter’s Church, Cambridge

2008                   Kettle’s Yard Open, Cambridge

2001/1999         Elm Hill Contemporary Art, Norwich

2000/1999         Art Futures, Contemporary Art Society, London

1998                  Eastern Open, King’s Lynn Art Centre, Norfolk

1996                  Repetition, Southern Arts Touring Exhibition: Winchester Art College, Nuova Icona Gallery, Venice, Caco Zanaki   Gallery, Aalst, Belgium ArtSway Hampshire

1996                  Kettle’s Yard Open, Cambridge

 

AWARDS

2021                   OCAS Biennale: Levison Meltzer Piggott award

2015                   Research and Development Grant, Arts Council East

2005                   Research and Development Grant, Arts Council East

1998                   Lady Evershed Drawing Award, Eastern Open

1996                   Artists’ Development Award, Eastern Arts Board

1996                   British Council Award

 

RESIDENCIES

2017-2018          Bruton School for Girls, Bruton, Somerset

2012-2013          AA2A Cambridge School of Art

2010                   In Flux, Escalator Retreat, Wysing Arts Centre, Cambs.

2007                   Bundanon, New South Wales, Australia

1996                   St. Mary Magdalen Church, Leintwardine, Herefordshire

Contact me Alexandra Drysdale, Artist, Bruton, Somerset, UK.