Visual Artist, Designer

Alexandria Levin

CLACKAMAS, USA

Born in NYC, I was a child who loved to color and never stopped. My parents neither encouraged nor discouraged me, so as not to influence what I chose to do in life. I kept choosing art.

As a high school senior, I was introduced to acrylic painting. I moved to Boston after graduation and applied to Massachusetts College of Art. The following year, I took my first class in oils. Loved that, but I grew restless with school and dropped out soon afterward.

I began showing my work in group exhibitions, hosted open studios, and received my first grant. However, Boston was very limiting for a young artist at that time. I needed opportunities. I moved to San Francisco in 1985. I returned to school, attending the San Francisco Art Institute to complete my undergraduate education. My cohort of students was amazing. After graduation, I became involved with the local multicultural arts community.

In 1995, I moved to Albuquerque. I took a few random drawing classes and learned more about drawing than from either art college I attended. I became involved with the Jewish arts community while living in NM, and persevered in growing my career.

Love and stupidity brought me to Philadelphia in 2002. That is a whole other story. I kept painting and showing my work, though, no matter what. In early 2016, I was finally able to escape. I moved to the PNW.

Once in Portland, I began connecting. By 2019, I was on the verge of major career achievements, but then there was a pandemic, and it all collapsed. In 2023, I was diagnosed as Autistic. A lifetime's worth of questions was finally answered. It’s been one weird journey, and still, it’s far from over.

What are you making right now?

Continuing my adventures with painting odd trees in strange landscapes is making me the happiest. I have three going at once right now. I am also working with the Chronic Pain Project (chronicpainproject.org), with more shows coming up later this year. Between the headaches and the arthritis, I am creating and exhibiting small abstract works in both oil and mixed-mediawatercolor. I was juried into Portland Open Studios, coming up in October 2026. This takes a LOT of preparation, not just for exhibiting and hopeful sales, but also carefully planning various work demos for the public. I wish I could report more exciting things, as well as milestones worthy of a 45-year career. However, my career has not yet recovered from the setbacks of the pandemic. Being Jewish and Autistic has not helped the situation any, although I love being both, no tradesies.

What medium do you work in and what drew you to it?

Paint is magical stuff. It is sensual and colourful and full of depth. The brush becomes a conductor’s baton, a warrior’s sword, a magic wand. Becoming lost with intention while painting is a form of prayer. For me, the process of painting is balancing truly being able to see while giving form to the unseen. I spend quality time in creation, developing a relationship with the work. I build up layers, scrape away with sandpaper, glaze over with transparencies, add more opacities with brushes and other tools... Until the painting itself tells me, “I’m done.” I love the still image, the two-dimensional plane. It is a place you can enter and be able to work on it. What a gift! You can live there. It’s a really good place to be.

If you could spend an hour with anyone you admire, living or dead, who would it be and what would you ask them?

My Dad. He died when I was 22 (way too many years ago), and I would give anything for more time with him, even an hour. I would ask him more about our family’s history, on his side, which I know so little about. My parents’generation was traumatized, and they spoke little about what came before. I was able to learn more from my Mom in later years, but there was no one left on his side of the family. In my life, there hardly ever was. For that matter, we know why.

What do you need in your workspace to spark creativity?

The only thing I need to spark creativity in any space is my own mind. The creativity is constant. I am very fortunate in that. In my own studio, I prefer minimal background noise, good lighting, a comfortable temperature (which is something of a situation in my current intensively funky old studio building)...But I don’t need much. Space, time, good materials, being left alone. That is usually enough.

What would you like people to understand about your work?

I spend quality time and years of skill on each painting while building up layers, adjusting the composition, scraping away color, glazing transparencies, adding opacities, sometimes carving lines. This process evolves into metaphor, allegory, and meaning, balancing representation with abstraction. I work exclusively with my own photographs and sketches as source material. My landscapes honor the natural world, inclusive of social, ecological, and climate issues. Structures are the imposition of humans. Animals portrayed are themselves, but sometimes nature as a whole, and sometimes are autobiographical. Flowers are appearing. They have yet to tell me what they are about. Trees have been important subject matter for many years, from individual tree portraits to allegorical forests to the Tree of Life itself. I am inawe of the local broken trees, from electric lines and ice storms. They are survivors, seemingly disabled and disfigured, but also beautiful.

Has your identity, culture, heritage, or community influenced your creative practice?

My being Jewish, my culture, my history, my Jewish family (both sides) – all have appeared in one form or another over the years in my artwork. If not obviously, then by an undefinable way in how I perceive, interpret and/orexpress things. But it has mostly surfaced in my having questions, giving those questions visual form, from both wanting and needing to know more about my own history and culture. However, obviously, from the following: • An earlier extensive body of allegorical work painted from old B&W family photographs • Three painting-based art installations that were deeply Jewish (either personal or historical) • Mixed-media works on wood (heavy!) based on holidays • A number of specifically Tree of Life paintings, something I will most likely get back into • A small series of Yahrzeit candle paintings, with the wicks having been snuffed out. • Probably more creative projects that I cannot recall at the moment

What does success look like to you as a creative?

I wish it were not so, but I get caught up in wanting the standard career success of museum shows, magazine covers, trustworthy and productive gallery relationships, and steady international collectors. I have had a small taste of each of these, but it’s been slim. And frustrating. However, I paint what I want. I follow my own demanding muse and nobodyelse’s. I have that freedom, along with other talents and a willingness to patch together a living, as so many artists do, with art-adjacent work, designing, and teaching. In being my own artistic self, I have tremendous success... Because I have never given up on continuing with my own creative work. Finally, a less-spoken-about measure of success is in inspiring others. It is not something I have sought out, but I have had this success too, and it’s an absolute honor.