About
Alexine McLeod is a Vancouver-born emerging artist. She recently graduated from Emily Carr University of Art and Design in the spring of 2016. During her time at ECUAD, she received the Renée Van Halm + Pietro Widmer Graduation Award for Visual Arts as well as a scholarship from the Vancouver Art Guild. Her first solo exhibition was recently held at Monte Clark Gallery in Vancouver where she is also represented. Previously, she has participated in a number of group exhibitions at artist-run centers in East Vancouver where she lives and works.
Statement
Alexine McLeod is an interdisciplinary artist who produces wall-mounted abstract compositions by combining everyday materials including plastic, fabric, found objects and light. She collects objects based on chance encounters in which formal intrigue plays a primary role. These disparate, often humble items are combined into contrasting arrangements through an experimental process. Physical objects are fixed with nails and pins for the duration of their installation in a given space. Inevitably, subtle variations occur each time a work is reinstalled in a new context.
Rather than operating in one specific discipline, McLeod’s work presents different media that are simultaneously discerned: sculptural objects are arranged in a tableau-like fashion synonymous with photographic processes; subtle colour variations and fluid compositions borrow from the language of painting; juxtapositions and joinery reveal a methodology rooted in collage and assemblage.
With light also participating in the forms, depth appears to shift, allowing for a multitude of ways to witness the installations. The borders of McLeod’s work are implied by the edge of projected light, while physical materials are allowed to freely pass through the perceived borders. This unstable transition from inside to outside the immaterial parameters of the light asks one to consider where the work begins and ends.
McLeod is interested in the subjectivity of perception. She acknowledges that everything we see is influenced by the presence of light or lack thereof. Through an inquisitive approach to seeing and making, she produces works that express a synthesis of material and immaterial elements. In this process hierarchical structure breaks down and a leveling out occurs whereby each component becomes equally relevant. In turn, questions arise about the relationship between seeing and meaning.
