Alexandra Marangelis: The Emerging Oil Painter
Congratulations to Alexandra Marangelis for earning her place as a Winner in the Boynes Monthly Art Award [November Edition]!
Who are you?
My name is Alexandra, I am a twenty-year-old artist based in Western Australia. I was born in South Africa but moved to Australia when I was quite young to be closer to my family who lived there. I am also half Greek, which is a part of my life and culture that makes up a big part of who I am today. I have been drawing from as I can remember. When I was about eight or nine years old my mother introduced me to Van Gogh with a coffee table book of all his paintings, which served as a big catalyst for my deep fascination with artists, and specifically painters. At that time in my young mind artists were held in the same category as magical beings with their incredible power to create such beautiful images on canvas with just their mind and some brushes. As I grew older I slowly discovered that art is a skill you can learn and hone with practice and I fell in love with the process. I did art all through school at every opportunity and went on after school to do a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Curtin University. Now as a graduate, I am in the process of learning how to practice as a working artist.
“Refined Lady” (Part of Clandestine Queers, Hidden in Plain Sight series)
Oil on Canvas
By Alexandra Marangelis
WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO UTILIZE painting AS A MEDIUM?
I've always been drawn to the medium of paint as I found the process meditative, and oil paint specifically easy to manipulate and generous in what you were visually able to achieve with it. My growing love for the works of artists such as Sargent, Rembrandt and honestly all the post-impressionists spurred my desire to be able to paint as they were able.
“Distinguished Gentleman” (Part of Clandestine Queers, Hidden in Plain Sight series)
Oil on Canvas
By Alexandra Marangelis
How would you describe your ARTwork?
At its core, I think my work aims to portray people, and aspects of the human experience beautifully through the medium of paint. While I think my work as a whole leans towards lacking consistency in aesthetic style, due to my tendency to attempt to emulate facets of whatever painting has captured my attention at a given time that I have not yet attempted. As a working artist, it is easy to be overly concerned with having a recognisable ‘style’ across your work for possible clients to identify you by, but I think it is more important to facilitate play and experimentation and with time your artistic voice will naturally develop. Despite this, I’d say my work is recognisable by its consistency in subject matter and my interest in portraying people and human experience through my eyes in a way that is beautiful and touches and connects with people.
“Moonfairy”
Oil on Canvas
By Alexandra Marangelis
Can you discuss the inspiration and thought process behind your winning work?
My winning work was inspired by my desire to take up a project that would allow me to explore and learn more about queer history. As a queer person myself with an interest in the cultural impacts of art movements throughout time, I wanted to create a series of paintings that appropriated the visual language of historical Western-European art movements, spaces where queer representation has historically not been welcome and contextualise it within a contemporary queer context. This body of work was made for a queer audience; to create a place where they can know they are seen and represented proudly, where erasure and shame used to live.
“Respectable Gentleman” (Part of Clandestine Queers, Hidden in Plain Sight series)
Oil on Canvas
By Alexandra Marangelis
Can you walk us through the technical steps of creating your winning work?
My painting process combines traditional techniques used by the ‘old masters’ with modern technologies and digital programs. For example, with almost all my painting projects I use Procreate to create thumbnails to get a visual understanding of effective compositions and colour palettes for a work. Combining long-time vetted painting methods with new technologies allows me to utilise the benefits of both. With trial, error and experience over the years, I have developed an organised process to my painting practice that is now almost automatic when I’m starting a new painting.At the time of creating the winning work, I was also working on improving my canvas-making skills, which is a fairly new part of my painting process. It is now something which I take a lot of joy and satisfaction in knowing that every part of the final artwork is a product of my hands.
Once I have my supports, I prime and tone the surface and then sketch on my composition with thinned-out oil paint, using a refined thumbnail with a reference image taken for the painting. An important part of my process that helps me achieve the correct values and hues in my work is that I spend a significant amount of time before I start painting premixing all the colours I need for an area and laying them out on my pallet in order of value and then temperature. This may seem tedious, but I find it relaxing and meditative and it allows me to completely focus on my brushwork and technique when painting.
“Respectable Gentleman (WIP)” (Part of Clandestine Queers, Hidden in Plain Sight series)
Oil on Canvas
By Alexandra Marangelis
What do you hope to communicate to an audience with your work?
I never attempt to have my work communicate with or ‘be for’ everyone who views it. I rarely have an audience in mind when I start a project. My belief is that if you make an artwork that is meaningful and speaks to you, it is very likely that there is a group of people that will also be able to connect with it, whether that be in the intended way or a completely new way. As long as my work is able to emotionally touch even a few people and create a sense of connection, it has achieved its purpose. For the Clandestine Queers, Hidden in Plain Sight series, my aim was to create a body of work that created space for queer representation in art where it historically has not been welcome, with the hopes that anyone who connected with the figures in the work would feel seen and a sense of proud community.
“Shower Thoughts”
Oil on Canvas
By Alexandra Marangelis
Can you talk about your biggest learning experience during the process of creating your work?
My biggest learning experience was probably that buying cheaper low-weight canvas is not a smart, economical idea because it will rip when you try to stretch it over a large frame and you will have to end up buying and reinforcing your support with board and hand-stretching your canvas until your fingers are bleeding. I definitely will not make this mistake again.
Can you discuss your biggest success since starting your artistic journey?
I think I would consider my biggest success to this point since the start of my career has been the strong and healthy mentality I have developed surrounding my artistic practice. I think I have reached a point where I have the confidence to make the art I want and embraced rejection as a natural part of being an artist, viewing it more as a learning experience and redirection to a better path and not viewing it as a personal failure. This mental attitude which I have developed with time and learning from mistakes has allowed to to enjoy the process more and create and share more of my work as a result.
“Figures” (Series of four paintings)
Oil on Canvas
By Alexandra Marangelis
Can you give us the best piece of advice you’ve gotten?
In art school, I was taught the very important lesson, by many of my incredible tutors and professors, that if you want to make good art and have this be a sustainable path, you have to look after yourself. This romanticised notion that great art only comes from the slightly insane, tortured artist is a harmful fallacy. Having balance in life and looking after your mental and physical it is necessary in order to reach your creative potential, have a long-term career and not burn out.
What projects are you working on currently? Can you discuss them?
Since graduating my main focus has been establishing myself as a working artist and finding a larger studio space as I am rapidly outgrowing mine. I’ve been busy with creating a website to share my work on and communicate with clients and as always, alongside this I have been enjoying working on master studies of works I love in order to improve and gain confidence in my craft.
What is your dream project or piece you hope to accomplish?
I would love to challenge myself with another large painting project for either a solo show or a collaborative show with a few artists I love.
“The Kiss”
Oil & Gold Leaf on Canvas
By Alexandra Marangelis
As a winner, do you have any advice for artists who want to submit to awards, competitions, residencies, etc.?
Look at the work of previous winners/accepted applicants to see what kind of work the organisation is looking for and use it as a guideline for what you apply to and how you curate your submission. Also, do not be afraid to apply for things even if you don’t think you are ‘good enough’ or experienced enough to win/ be accepted. You lose nothing from trying and it is good practice and experience.
Lastly, I like to ask everyone what advice they would give to their fellow artists, what is your advice?
I think I would advise that if your goal is to pursue art professionally don’t rely on motivation or inspiration to strike to start making art. Motivation is volatile and unreliable. Like any profession, it requires a level of discipline that will help you in the long run and give you good work ethic habits. My second piece of advice would be to kill off perfectionism; fear of making bad art kills creativity and passion for your craft and will only stunt your ability to grow.
To view more of Alexandra Marangelis