Alexandrea Nicholas-Jennings: The Imaginative Realist
Congratulations to Alexandrea Nicholas-Jennings for earning her place as a Winner in the Boynes Monthly Art Award [December 2023 Edition]!
Who are you?
‘Whoooo arrrre Yoooou? Ahhhh…that’s the great puzzle.’ My name is Alexandrea Nicholas-Jennings and sometimes I’m Alice. I am a Classically trained artist who has studied Classical Realism in New York City and Toronto. I have earned three university degrees in Fine Art and Art Education from the U.S. and Canada. As part of my artist journey, along with the practice of painting and drawing, I continue to travel the world in pursuit of seeing the best art that influences, inspires and informs my work. It also brings me great joy to appreciate the works of artists who have come before me. I am an Imaginative Realist artist telling my story through the painted medium one brushstroke at a time who loves adventure followed by moments of quiet contemplation. My world has been lovingly influenced by all things theatrical as I’ve also studied Classical ballet for 20 years. I have a deep love for the stage, drama, vintage fashion, antiques and anything visually based that is unusual or of another time. My tastes are quirky and sometimes macabre but never boring as life is an adventure and with each day I grow ‘Curiouser and Curiouser”.
Curiouser and Curiouser
Oil on Canvas
By Alexandrea Nicholas-Jennings
WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO UTILIZE painting AS A MEDIUM?
In kindergarten, we were encouraged to pursue one hour of our favorite activity each day. The easels in the quiet corner of the room, with manilla paper clipped with multi-coloured clothespins and jars filled with tempera paint in the wells seemed to be an obvious choice for this young artist. If I close my eyes, I can still smell the paint. It was always blue or brown - but that didn’t matter because my young imagination filled in the rest. The paintbrushes remained in each jar of paint overnight and the handles were encrusted with old tempera paint - I remember it clearly. Often, I was the only child who chose painting; alone in a quiet corner with my thoughts, a big blank piece of manilla paper and my imagination. Creating the painting was the most meaningful experience and it was very fulfilling - it filled my soul. Then came the second best part - the part that enhanced the whole activity. My teacher, armed with a big official black smelly chiseled marker, came to write down everything that I said my painting was about. I was in heaven when she would say “tell me about your painting.” I was five, and could not read yet, however, I watched my teacher take dictation from me and write down my narrative in big black words in a sentence below my picture. That was my first artist statement. The painting was now complete. I was hooked. I was an artist.
If Alex Were Queen Of Hearts For A Day
Oil on Canvas
By Alexandrea Nicholas-Jennings
How would you describe your ARTwork?
My artwork is me. My ‘Alex in Wonderland’ story is autobiographical and began with my first tumble down the rabbit hole. This is when Alex/Alice was born. Although my story is similar to Alice’s and parallels hers - it is not identical. Serendipitously, I then found my life unfolding and paralleling, in the order of the chapters from Wonderland. Wonderland is not a place - it is a state of mind. Wonderland is not always saccharine and sunny - at times it can be downright dark - but Alice always finds the light. Alice IS the light in what seems at times to be a very dark world. Each painting represents my current state of mind as I paint, and, like my emotions, I explore my full palette. My palette is not limited nor monochromatic, just like my life. Despite being a Classically trained artist, I am interested in freely and whimsically finding my way through Wonderland as an Imaginative Realist. As an artist, I enjoy combining the restraint that I learned from my years of training in Classical Realism mixed with the dithered strokes of some Impressionism and alla prima elements all mixed in one piece. I love working in this manner as it simultaneously offers the the variety and the unity - the chaos and the discipline - of my experiences through Wonderland. It is an imperative approach to telling my story.
My work is about the human experience and what it ‘means to be human’ in a sometimes topsy- turvy world. It is about being authentic, knowing my truth and staying the course no matter what or who crosses my path. My work is about telling my artist truth and unapologetically living out loud. My work is about my personal trauma but more importantly my resilience and my grit. My work is a ‘yes’ in a world sometimes full of “nos”. My work is about beauty, always choosing beauty, even when some things seem dark and ugly. My work is not saccharine - my work is my truth. Alice has waited long enough.
King Of The Avians
Oil on Canvas
By Alexandrea Nicholas-Jennings
Can you discuss the inspiration and thought process behind your winning work?
My winning piece is one of many paintings that I am creating for my ‘Alex in Wonderland series”.
I love art. It is the air that I breathe. I love art history and studied so much of it in my undergraduate and graduate programs. I continue to travel the world to see art treasures that I’ve never seen first hand or have only seen in books or online. The greatest treasure of all - is seeing a rare beauty of an artwork that is in a private collection. I feel like I am on a treasure hunt searching for a bounty of gold and jewels. A painting or drawing is a far more precious treasure to me than a trunk filled with gold coins. It preserves a moment in time that would otherwise be lost forever. The artist’s voice speaks to us ‘in this moment”. Essentially, I believe that art cheats death.
I remember seeing Waterhouse’s painting “Cleopatra” in person many years ago. The experience was visceral. Her beauty and wickedness were evident at once; it was palpable. My Queen of Hearts character is just that to me - deeply wicked and physically beautiful at once. This is probably what makes her image so powerful and enticing to me. I find my Queen of Hearts painting to be enchanting and deeply abhorrent at once - this is the allure for me .
A model friend of mine, walked into the atelier one day with bright cherry-red hair. She was a professional model and had just dyed her hair for a professional photoshoot. In my mind, I cast her as my Queen of Hearts on the spot.
I love Waterhouse’s painting ‘Cleopatra’. I believe that it subconsciously influenced my painting ‘All On a Summer’s Day’ through its iconography and mood. My Queen’s sinuous S-curved posture, as she sits slouched but fully in control on her throne, still sends shivers down my spine. I loved creating the impastoed whipped-cream-like textured details on this painting’s surface. The surface quality is very rich in places and catches the light, hence catching the viewer’s eye. There are moments when her gold scepter flickers and appears to come to life. This is aided by the ambient light in the room, the viewer’s gaze and imagination. Her costume’s black and white harlequin diamond pattern was enchanting and hypnotically rhythmic to paint. And while most conventions in art warn against using the colour red in large amounts - I felt that I had to challenge this limiting and somewhat outdated approach to colour and celebrate the hue RED in all of its glory. As an artist I feel that I must challenge some of the conventional restraints when it comes to using colour. Instead, I love to use colour like high chroma red in a more controlled and thoughtful way. That was the challenge that enticed me when I was creating this painting, and I always love and seek out a challenge.
All On A Summer’s Day
Oil on Canvas
By Alexandrea Nicholas-Jennings
Can you walk us through the technical steps of creating your winning work?
I start with a warm iron oxide red variation of an imprimatura thinly brushed onto the panel. I then transfer my cartoon, drawn from life, onto the panel using charcoal. I never loose the drawing and ensure this by inking in the image onto the support using permanent sepia ink and a quill pen. I am a huge fan of Baroque painting and have created several copies of master works - one of which was after Caravaggio. I love recreating and retracing the steps of the Old Masters - mentally deconstructing a work and recreating it in oil paint. Caravaggio creates drama in a painting in many ways. One way is the application of paint. He builds up the lights and thins out the paint in the darks creating quiet shadows against very bright thick juicy lights. I have learned this through recreating paintings such as Caravaggio’s ‘Judith Beheading Holofernes’ and Guido Reni’s ‘Lucretia’. After learning this technique from the Masters, I have taken this principle of light and dark and have implemented it in my own way to create the luminous and deadly appearance of the Queen of Hearts flesh tones. This technique was imperative to me in portraying her beautiful porcelain doll-like flesh and icy demeanor. As I painted, I kept referring to a value and colour study that I created at the start of this painting. This is a necessary practice, in order to to keep the hierarchy of values and hues in the proper order and placement within the composition. Without this basic principle in mind - the entire painting can collapse in terms of design. To ensure the archival nature of my work I always work fat-over-lean. I created this painting and all of its elements within two months. Stylistically, I love allowing the imprimatura and parts of the underpainting to show through as in her tutu-skirt and the fleshtones of her legs. This peek-a-boo moment is very interesting to me as the creator of this painting because it harkens back to my process, peels back a layer and ‘shouts I am here’.
What do you hope to communicate to an audience with your work?
Truth. Always truth. And beauty. Beauty - not as superficial or pretty or hollow or vapid. My definition of beauty entails truth, wellness, learning, growth, collaboration and love as an essential way of “being” in the world. Art and beauty saves lives - I believe this. Art celebrates life and shows us the way. Artists light the path for others through their art with their own internal lantern. I hope to communicate all of this through my art.
Can you talk about your biggest learning experience during the process of creating your work?
Digging deep, very deep within myself to achieve my goal. And just when I thought that I could dig no longer and hit rock bottom - there was a new rock bottom. And so I would get out a shovel and dig some more. I never ever thought that I had so much resilience. For over a decade - I worked all day in a career and pursued Classical Training as an artist at night. I would drive over 600 miles per week for over a decade to learn what I needed to pursue the art career that I wanted. I felt like I was playing ‘catch up’ with my life sometimes feeling buried alive in a pit of quicksand - but every day I would shovel myself out. Having to be a career person by day, be a student by night - every day of the week (and ‘life’ in between) seemed like a super-human task for over 10 years. I was, and still am like a dog-with-a-bone. Just sharpening a syringe-like pencil on a block of sandpaper for thirty minutes only for it to break was more than I could take on certain days. Or filling in holes the size of grains of salt with charcoal on watercolor paper (all part of my academic art training) after a full day of working, driving in hellish traffic, eating dinner off of my lap to go and learn and grow was very challenging and extremely tiring. There is no road map to being an artist. The road map is you - your heart - your tenacity. I have learned many, many art techniques in all of my years being Classically trained by many artists. However, the most important technique of all is self regulation and mastering failures - because it is through this practice that one eventually succeeds.
Icarus
Oil on Canvas
By Alexandrea Nicholas-Jennings
Can you discuss your biggest success since starting your artistic journey?
Taking a chance, throwing caution to the wind to find my authentic path in life and “taking the road less traveled by”. Quitting a career that, at the time, seemed to be a ridiculous and obvious choice at once. Being afraid but doing it anyway. This decision to become a full time artist was one of the scariest and most personally fulfilling things I’ve ever done in my life.
This life altering decision, in turn, lead me to some of the most unbelievable experiences of my life like winning the Best of Portrait from The Portrait Society of Canada, being sponsored to become a Member of the prestigious Salmagundi Club of New York, being offered a solo show in NYC, being honoured with “Signature Status” by the esteemed Portrait Society of America, and now interviewed by Boynes Artist Award, just to name a few. And being a portrait artist, means caring deeply about people. The people, the artists who I have met along the way who have been kind and generous - they are the epitome of what it means to be an artist. And my success could not be celebrated without mentioning ‘the wind beneath my butterfly wings’ my husband John - otherwise cast as the White Rabbit. The White Rabbit is Alice’s best friend, her confidant and some believe he is her subconscious. In any case - we travel Wonderland together.
I could - never - ever have dreamt this big - if I had stayed safe and followed convention with my day job. Like a very well rehearsed trapeze acrobat - with a net below - one must let go with one hand in order to reach for the next gold ring.
“Always dream one size bigger.’ - Alexandrea Nicholas-Jennings
Can you give us a piece of advice you wish you had known at the start of your career?
Believe in yourself. I keep a “believe’ rock in every room. I write “believe” in bright chalk letters - in every high chroma colour - on my chalk wall in my studio. ‘Believe it to achieve it’ - might sound trite or simple - but it's not. Never quit. Never give up. Be resilient and keep coming back for more. Find the humor and the joy in it all. Be the last person standing. Be gritty with a soft and open heart. Be as tough as a “rock’ with the spirit of a “butterfly”. The mind is a very powerful thing and can take you to Wonderful places. Always remembering that “everything begins with a thought” - Emerson.
Cages Bluebird
Oil on Canvas
By Alexandrea Nicholas-Jennings
What projects are you working on currently? Can you discuss them?
I am currently working towards a solo show in New York City this year focusing primarily on ‘The Portraits of Wonderland’. These pieces are the precursors for a larger more narrative exhibit I am working on for the future, at a much later date. However, these portraits are deeply personal, painted from life, and very significant in developing the characters and the next stage of Wonderland.
What is your dream project or piece you hope to accomplish?
Alex in Wonderland is never finished- it is a series that goes on with me. It is my ever-evolving life’s story - as I age, as I face challenges and hardships as well as life’s joys and rewards. There will always be a new adventure or lesson to be learned and to share. It is my hope that the viewer can see a little bit of themselves mirrored back and can relate to one aspect of each of my paintings or drawings from Wonderland.
Escaping The Rabbit Hole
Oil on Canvas
By Alexandrea Nicholas-Jennings
As a winner, do you have any advice for artists who want to submit to awards, competitions, residencies, etc.?
Persistence. Grit. Keep on trying and do not compromise your vision or your voice for anything or anyone. Failure or being overlooked can be very painful experiences but are the necessary ingredient to building personal resilience, grit, determination and your own voice. The proverbial ‘journey” can be very rewarding but unfortunately, it also includes failing and some disappointment at times. Navigating the art world requires a very strong sense of self. But as the old saying goes “fall down 9 times - get up 10” - Alice knows this all too well. I also advocate having a sense of community and supporting fellow artists on their journey. This may seem counterintuitive however it is key, in not only building a strong art community, an art movement but also a necessary element in finding ‘your’ place in what can seem to be, a tumultuous art world.
The Caucus Race
Oil on Canvas
By Alexandrea Nicholas-Jennings
Lastly, I like to ask everyone what advice they would give to their fellow artists, what is your advice?
Be yourself. Be yourself because everyone else is taken. Be yourself in paint, in pencil, in your everyday activities; be yourself in life. It may sound cliche - but this mantra should be a proverb. In a world where we are encouraged to “fit in” I feel that we should celebrate all of those idiosyncrasies that make a person ‘stand out' especially when it comes to artists. More likely than not, artist-types were probably deemed the unusual or awkward child - the misunderstood ugly duckling - who really grew up and proved to be a Swan. I think that artists should celebrate their inner Swan-dom without hesitation or apology. Alice knows who she is - so does Alex. Nothing sways her from her truth. People of Wonderland try - the Mad Hatter, The Cheshire Cat, The Duchess and the Queen of Hearts to name a few. When Alice finds herself in a backwards world - where truth is a lie - and a lie is truth - she stays her course. Sometimes staying your course means leaving in order to stay true to oneself. Always, always be true to your inner-Alice; she knows the way. Push past fear and self doubt because joy lives on the other side. “Always, always grow one size bigger.” - Alexandrea Nicholas-Jennings
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