Barcelona artist creates cubism paintings focused on overcoming the shame of decay.
According to Alessandra B-B, society has conditioned us to think that the process of decay is shameful, inevitable, and depressing. But is it though? Every change signals our inner growth and progress. We become older, wiser, and more experienced. Isn’t there beauty in the breasts of a woman who fed a child? Isn’t there beauty in the fingers of an old woman who worked hard all her life? “When I see my own wrinkles, they remind me of the creases in the skin of a fruit,” Alessandra says. She is fascinated by this world of aging and transformation.
“But it’s not just my physical body,” she says, “it is also a sort of canvas that shows my inner feelings and experiences. I am proud of it. I would really want for every person in the world and especially women to see this. Those women who are still feeling oppressed by the patriarchy. I want them to enjoy and appreciate every stage of their life. I want them to love their bodies with its natural changes and wish they could see it as a pinnacle of harmony, perfection, beauty, and life.”
Alessandra’s Stunning Cubism Paintings
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Reflecting the world
“I did not want to be an artist,” Alessandra says. “I have always been one. The question of choice never stood for me: as far as I remember myself, I always drew. This was my way to express myself and reflect on the world around me. I went to art school early. Since being a child, I’ve been creating my own world with pencils and paints. The art school was my second home. From childhood, painting was my superpower.”
Searching for the truth
Alessandra was born in the city of Vitebsk. It is a Belorussian town on the border with Russia where Marc Chagall was born and raised. Together with Malevich, they created an art school that became globally famous for the glorified and revolutionary avant-garde art.
It’s not a surprise that the whole city is imbued with a love of art. Therefore, since childhood, walking along the streets of Vitebsk, Alessandra saw the world through the prism of Marc Chagall’s paintings.
At some point, I realized that the most important thing in my work is an idea, your inner theme, or even sometimes your searching process itself.
She decided to immerse fully in the history of art and to study all the features and subtleties of oil painting techniques. “I have made hundreds of copies of great masters paintings searching for myself and my technique,” Alessandra says, “copying and studying great masters from Giotto to Basquiat.”
Alessandra was desperately searching for herself and her vision, focusing more on the technical side. “I tried to paint the landscapes around me, fantasy worlds, and even color abstractions,” she says. “But at some point, I realized that the most important thing in my work is an idea, your inner theme, or even sometimes your searching process itself. The most important thing is the truth, which you keep in yourself, that truth that you discover as an artist, and how you express this is a secondary matter. It can be oil and canvas, something traditional, or modern way, for example, a garbage installation. There are no boundaries for art.”
How time alters fruit and vegetables
For the last two years, Alessandra has studied how time alters fruit and vegetables. “Why did I choose them?” she says. “Well, fruit and vegetables are perfect for observing the cycle of transformation from growth to decay, from the moment the fruit has ripened to its full disappearance. I am fascinated by the way a fruit or a vegetable will change daily depending on the conditions.”
The next logical step was to re-assess her own body. “I discovered that my body isn’t going to be young and full of vitality forever,” she says. “It’s mortal and just as a fruit, it is undergoing a transformation and will decay. My body is changing every day.
“I want women to love their bodies with their natural changes and wish they could see it as a pinnacle of harmony, perfection, beauty, and life. We lose and find ourselves, we change but somehow stay the same person, we age but come alive. We are a process but not a frozen, still, pretty picture.”
Cubism paintings in temporal reality
“I often say that in order to understand an artist well, you need to have a set of keys to her/his work,” Alessandra says.
She likes to work with large and medium format paintings. “I paint in oils on canvas and often add a lead pencil or colored pencils,” she says. “I paint with different brushes, fabrics, and even fingers. And the inspiration for me now is the process of world transformation. In each of the paintings, I look for special moments of change.”
Alessandra uses the Cubist idea of depicting an object simultaneously from different angles and also strives to show her object of study from different points, but not at a specific moment in time, rather in temporal reality. “It’s kind of a projection, a diagram of the most important changes for a certain time interval,” she says. “It’s like a new dimension. Sometimes it’s a day, sometimes it’s a lifetime.”
Almost every time she finds a fruit or vegetable that matches the person who she is working with and this often inspires the painting’s color scheme. “Nature is perfect and harmonious, and it is my inspiration,” she says.
To see Alessandra’s latest cubism paintings, visit Saatchi Art >
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