Alejandra Morales Garza
Alejandra Morales Garza Artist Biography
Alejandra Morales Garza (b. Monterrey, 1993) is a visual artist working mostly in oil and acrylic. She graduated in 2016 with a Bachelor of Arts degree majoring in Liberal Arts from McGill University. Alejandra continued her education by pursuing a Master's in Art and Design Research at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Her dissertation focused on Mexican costumbrismo and the configuration of Mexican identity through the portrayal of food in art.
In 2018, she had her first solo exhibition ‘El Huitlacoche y otras pasiones’ at EINA Espai Barra de Ferro in Barcelona. After finishing her studies, she returned to her native Monterrey, where she has had multiple collective art shows at galleries, museums, and alternative spaces. Her artwork has been exhibited in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Spain.
Statement
I paint scenes typically associated with femininity, tenderness, and fragility. I create fantastical worlds that are distorted and baroque while remaining comforting and aesthetic. The humorous and ironic undertones to many of my works have led some to refer to it as being kitsch. However, I believe the excessive use of ornamentation can be seen as reflective of life’s negations: clichés that have lost their innocence without spreading wisdom.
Fundamentally, my artwork explores female sexuality and traditional female ideals of being a housewife and a child bearer. This is an ideology deeply rooted in my native city of Monterrey, in the conservative North of Mexico. This vision of success, a narrow, even asphyxiating, idea of fulfillment, is one that I find simultaneously fascinating and repellent. In my pieces, I typically contemplate these themes through the use of metaphor – principally birds and flowers. My aim is to use warmth, tonality, and humor as a means of ideological expression.