Alexandra

Alexandra Arshanskaya is a visual artist working in different media including painting, drawing and performances. Her art works are devoted to spatial perception.
Alexandra’s art practice began as a broad exploration of representations of space, such as architecture, urban landscapes, perspective, vanishing points, surfaces, intersections and reflections on reality. In her paintings and drawings she conveys a strong sense of depth and space, employing the interplay of light and shadow, and illusions of perspective and infinity, where emotional aspect of spatial perception plays an important role. The intricate fusion of inner and outer worlds lies at the heart of her painting. To emphasize a spatial impression Alexandra’s painting often is continuing on sides of its frame that makes the flat image three-dimensional object by itself. Alexandra uses vivid bright colors and gentle smooth transitions between them. She appreciates clear lines and working with meticulously precise brush technique.
Spatial perception, however, is intimately connected with the active exploration of space through movement over time. Just as a dancer crosses a stage following the rhythm of scored music, so, too, does a viewer’s gaze dance across the surface of an image according to its own particular rhythm. In an effort to address this aspect of experience and to connect these modes of expression more directly, since 2011 Alexandra expanded her practice into an investigation of painting and drawing as a live performance.
By performing the act of image making before the eyes of the viewer, the audience is included in the process of creating at the moment of creation. Moreover, when this is accomplished alongside live music and/or dance, the audience’s experience of the surrounding space and time is amplified, as image, sound, and space are connected in a new unity.
Alexandra Arshanskaya studied exact sciences at University (St-Petersburg, Russia) and obtained a Bachelor of Art degree from the Royal Academy of Art (The Hague, The Netherlands) in 2012. Here is her Final Project at KABK
Alexandra’s first live painting performances took place during Non-conformist Festival in St.Petersburg (Russia) in 2011 and at the final concert of the season at the Conservatory in Arnhem (The Netherlands) the same year. In October 2012 Alexandra gave a live drawing performance alongside the Residentie Orkest during its presentation of Le Sacre du Printemps (Igor Stravinsky) in Dr Anton Philipszaal (The Hague, The Netherlands). Here is a video documentation of the Le Sacre Live Drawing part of this outstanding performance.
In addition to exhibitions in which she has participated in Netherlands, London (UK), Berlin (DE) and St-Petersburg (Russia) during last ten years, Alexandra took part in jam sessions with dancers and musicians in The Netherlands, in 2013 she performed live drawings three times in London (by using different digital and analog drawing media) and once in The Hague during Today’s Art festival (here is a link to the four minutes video Four Chapters of 20 minutes performance). Her Video Art Tree for modern dance performance was shown four times at different venues in St-Petersburg in 2014. In May the same year Alexandra performed digital drawing and VJ-ing during closing party of LISFE (Leiden International Short Film Experience) in Leiden (The Netherlands). In September and October 2014 Alexandra performed Live Drawing Performances with Live Electroacoustic Sound during the opening and the finissage of her solo exhibition at Gallery O-68 (Velp, The Netherlands). Another art project Colourful Identities (three Live Drawing Performances with the live jazz music) took place in Berlin in April 2015. In fall 2015 Alexandra participated in some group exhibitions on The Netherlands and performed at CD presentation of a new album ‘Vortex’ by INEDITS at Korzo Theater in The Hague (The Netherlands). During the opening of the group exhibition at the Atrium of the City Hall of The Hague in April 2016, Alexandra presented analog live painting performance along with a live music band. In June 2017 she performed digital Live Drawing Performance during the string trio concert as a part of the ‘Moon Village’ project at Estec (European Space Agency) in Noordwijk (NL).