Born 1991 in Cape Town, South Africa
Lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa
"With a lush tactility and heady mystique, the painted worlds of Alexia Vogel translate the amoebic, sublime nature of nostalgia, fantasy and 'wanderlust' into vast, immersive canvases and vivid works on paper. Her imagined paradises disavow the logic of time in order to reach a space and state more felt than perceived, spaces of sustained reverie and suspended sensation. With her mark making directed by instinct and spontaneity, Vogel allows the tactility of the paint and its autonomous movement across the surface of the canvas to direct her process. Moments of lucidity dissolve into states of dreamy meditation as the artist intuitively shifts between abstraction and figuration. More recent work sees notions of journey, passage and transition attaining more emphasis, while the artist continues to explore extremes of scale and further degrees of abstraction.
Since graduating with distinction from the Michaelis School of Fine Art in 2013, the artist has presented six solo exhibitions: 'Tangled Dreams' in 2021 (Barnard, Cape Town, South Africa), 'Light Leak' in 2019 (Barnard, Cape Town, South Africa); 'Along the Way' in 2017 (Barnard, Cape Town, South Africa); 'Yonder' in 2016 (MContemporary, Sydney, Australia); 'Alexia Vogel: Paintings' in 2015 (Barnard, Joburg Art Fair, Johannesburg, South Africa) and 'Lost in Reverie' in 2014 (Barnard, Cape Town, South Africa). Barnard has presented her work at various art fairs including 'Investec Cape Town Art Fair (ICTAF)' (2014-2020), 'Also Known as Africa (AKAA)', Le Carreau du Temple, Paris (2017 & 2018); 'START', Saatchi Gallery in London (2018); and 'Joburg Art Fair', Johannesburg (2014-15).
In 2018 the Southern African Foundation for Contemporary Art awarded her an artist residency at their European premises in St. Emilion, France and in 2020 she will participate in a MI-LAB (Mokuhanga Innovation Laboratory) artist residency programme in Japan.
The artist’s work is represented in the University of Cape Town (UCT) Collection and her limited edition book entitled 'Along the Way' (Published by Barnard, 2017) was recently added to the collection of the Thomas J. Watson Library at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York as well as the library collections of the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) and the Pratt Institute in New York."
