Alexandra Dillon

Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA, USA

Artist statement

ALEXANDRA DILLON instagram:@alexandradillonartist facebook:@alexandradillonart Alexandra Dillon is a Los Angeles-based surrealistic painter who creates art on found objects. With a flair for the theatrical, Dillon employs European painting traditions, from Roman-Egyptian Mummy paintings to Baroque portraiture, to contemplate the crossroads of character, psychology, self-hood, and the feminine persona. ​Dillon paints imagined portraits on worn paint brushes, the tool of her trade. These small paintings (whose size and shape are reminiscent of hand-mirrors) reflect unique personalities, "My characters come to me the way a novelist's do." she remarks. "They just show up and tell me who they are." Most of these portraits are of women. They engage the viewer with their penetrating gazes, and challenge the notion of self-effacement as female protocol. They are thoroughly feminine, yet radiantly self-possessed. The men too, exude a sense of self, and seen as a group, speak to the shared experience of being human, yet, distinct, and in charge of our own destinies. Exploring the connection between the clothes and the wearer, Dillon inverts the relationship by painting portraits of women on the dresses themselves. In one series, these ladies, are imagined as extras from the sets of Old Hollywood extravaganzas, representing the never-made-its who got to wear the costume only briefly, fulfilling an unsustainable, queen-for-a-day fantasy. Clothing becomes the metaphor for both...

Artwork