Vikky Alexander facts for kids

Vikky Alexander RCA (born January 30, 1959) is a Canadian artist. She creates modern art and lives in Montreal. She is part of a group of artists called the Vancouver School. She used to teach photography at the University of Victoria in Canada.

Since 1981, Vikky Alexander has shown her art all over the world. She is known for her photo-conceptualism and installation art. This means she uses photography, drawing, and collage to make art that often fills a space. Her art often explores how images are used and how nature and space can be deceiving. She uses mirrors, large photo murals of landscapes, postcards, and videos in her work.

About Vikky Alexander

Vikky Alexander was born in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. She studied art at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. She earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1979.

Her Art Style

Vikky Alexander is famous for her big photo-murals. These are large pictures that cover walls. She also makes multimedia art, which combines photography with sculptures. Her art often shows a strong interest in the history of buildings and how things are designed. She also looks at fashion.

Alexander uses modern architecture and industrial design in her art. She explores ideas about what is real and what is made up. Her early work helped to start a movement called Appropriation art in the 1980s. This is when artists use existing images or objects in their own new artworks. She is known as one of the youngest artists to be part of this movement.

In her newer art, Alexander continues to explore the differences between nature and human-made things. Her recent projects look at how consumerism creates dream lifestyles. She also explores where beauty and artificial things meet.

Where Her Art Has Been Shown

Vikky Alexander's art has been shown in many places around the world. She has had solo exhibitions, which means only her art was shown. These include shows in New York City, Bern, Vancouver, and San Francisco.

She has also been part of many group exhibitions. Her work has been displayed at famous museums like the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. It has also been shown in London, Taipei, and Seattle. In 2021, her art was part of an exhibition called Making Space in Halifax, Canada. In 2024, she had a solo show in Paris, France, called Vikky Alexander, Dream Palace.

Her work was also part of a big exhibition called Intertidal in Antwerp in 2004. This show featured artists from the Vancouver School. Her early art was part of the Appropriation Art movement. Her later art helped develop Photo-conceptualism, which is a photography style of the Vancouver School.

Art in Collections

You can find Vikky Alexander's art in many important public collections. These include the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. Her work is also at the International Center of Photography in New York City. The National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa also has her art.

What Critics Say

Ian Wallace, an artist and writer from the Vancouver School, has talked about Vikky Alexander's art. He says her work shows our imagination. It explores hopes and dreams that make us question reality. These are shared dreams, like our popular taste for beautiful images. These images are everywhere in our world and help us escape everyday life.

Wallace explains that while some art tries to break these dreams with reality, Vikky Alexander's art goes deep inside them. It shows us the feelings and worries that exist within these fantasies.

Dan Graham, another artist and critic, has also commented on how design is used in her work. He talked about how two-dimensional design can show who a company is or who a person is. He mentioned how Alexander and other artists have designed things like cards or interiors for people. These items are not mass-produced or sold as art in galleries. They create a special relationship between the artist and the client.

Dan Cameron, an American curator, wrote about her large artwork called Lake in the Woods from 1986. He described it as a narrow room with a beautiful photo-mural on one side. On the other side was a wall unit with mirrors. He said you could only see the whole piece by standing at the ends of the room. He saw it as nature turned into decorative art, like a dream from a shared, artificial mind.