| ARTIST BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH: | With an exhibition record stretching back to the late 1960s, Alexandra Haeseker is a senior artist with a practice in painting, drawing, lithography, public art commissions, and mixed media wood cutout sculptures. Along with John Hall, Dulcie Foo Fat, Joice Hall, Gary Olson, Derek Besant and Maureen Enns, she is an early example of a new generation of artists in the 1970s who, instead of creating abstract art, adopted new modes of realism and representation. Haeseker’s scope ranges from photorealism to graphic illustration.
Her subject matter has always been novel. This includes paintings and mixed media wood cutouts exploring dog show culture with pure bred dogs depicted in brightly coloured enclosures of nylon tarps and reflective silver “space blankets.” Haeseker once commented that the source of her images is largely autobiographical. Beginning her practice with dark dreamlike imagery derived from family albums, the artist more recently has depicted contemporary life with hyper-real images adapted from toy effigies, and a more intimate view of other life forms, such as insects and animals on shaped canvases, and as museum installations.
Haeseker obtained a BFA (1966) and a Master of Arts degree (1972) from the University of Calgary. She also has a Fine Arts diploma from the Alberta College of Art (now Alberta College of Art + Design, Calgary, AB, 1968). She has instructed at the college in painting, drawing and printmaking (1973-2003) and was awarded Lecturer Emeritus in 2004. Notable exhibitions include Alexandra Haeseker: Twenty Years (Illingworth Kerr Gallery, ACAD, 1992). Her exhibitions now appear primarily in international venues such as at The Musée des Beaux-Arts (2015, Liège, Belgium), The Centro de Arte Moderno (2014, Madrid, Spain) and The Centre for Book Arts (2013, New York City, USA). |