CAM Galería presents Private Garden the solo exhibition by Alejandra España.

Life can be scary, fast, and discordant. Adulthood, the compilation of myriad experiences, can bury youthful dreams. Alejandra España resists this dark potential, using a common, joyful language of play to tap into the magical boundlessness of youth, nature, and the unconscious mind. Everything is connected and in a state of becoming.

Alejandra builds environments. Across media, references to biodiversity, home, and a totemic past dance together in color and light with a unique and universally symbolic porousness. Lithe, primordial creatures scamper across surfaces before bursting into three dimensions. The sounds of crickets and birds attune our senses to often-overlooked life- affirming details. And loose, dynamic brushstrokes allude to a moment when her world began. But the compositions’ meticulously crafted supports offset this newness and improvisation. Whether a painted panel (with all sides carefully considered) or a pedestal or a wall, she painstakingly considers the entirety of her works as fully formed messages of hope.

Alejandra consciously defines parameters within which she can let herself, and all of us, just be. She builds safe constraints to let her mind wander without censorship so her brain can reset from day-to-day toil and tap into subconscious universalities. As a result, shared symbols emerge, welcoming the viewer (us) into her garden.

Despite our distance in geography, language, and culture, I can feel the tenderness and excitement with which Alejandra plays, and, through the work, I feel our primal connection. I hear her whispered invitation for me to create my own garden within myself.

— Heather Bhandari, curator

Alejandra España, Mexico City, 1982

She studied at the School of Arts and Crafts, La Llotja, in Barcelona (2001) and with honors at ENPEG, La Esmeralda, in CDMX (2002-2007), obtained the Young Creators Scholarship in painting in 2006 and in 2014 in graphics. In 2009 she obtained an artistic residency at the Banff/FONCA Center, her work has been exhibited individually and collectively in Mexico and abroad in countries such as Germany, Austria, Canada, Colombia, the United States, Spain, Slovenia, France, England, Italy, Peru, Poland and Venice. It is worth highlighting its exhibition in museums and mexican cultural spaces such as the Rufino Tamayo Contemporary Art Museum, Carrillo Gil Museum, Mexico City Museum, National Stamp Museum, University Museum of Contemporary Art (MUAC), Juan José Arreola Lake House and El Eco Experimental Museum, while internationally are the Berkeley Art Center in California, USA, SOMarts Cultural Center San Francisco, USA, the Jaén Museum in Valencia, Spain and others. In 2013 her work in animation is the winner of the fourth Yucatan National Biennial of Visual Arts and she obtained the artistic residency of FONCA/AIR in Vallauris, France. In 2014 her painting was selected in the first National Landscape Biennial of Sonora and she has given plastic art workshops in Mexico in places such as the La Curtiduría Cultural Center in Oaxaca and the Center for the Arts in San Luis Potosí among others and her book "There was perhaps” by Malpaís Ediciones, was presented in 2018 at the National Palace of Fine Arts and “Eon Loop” was presented in 2019 at the Institute of Oaxaca IAGO. In 2017, during her stay in Oaxaca, she met Mtra. Aguri Uchida with whom she took Japanese painting classes at the San Agustín Etla Arts Center, in that year she began working on tapestry with artisans and artists from Teotitlán del Valle. In 2020 she exhibited individually at White Cremnits Gallery during the 8vi ACME Salon, CDMX and obtained the acquisition prize of the XIX Tamayo Biennial. In 2021, she exhibits in Zona Maco with Guadalajara 90210 Galería, along with her individual exhibition “Aquí y Ahora” with El Taller 65 Galería in CDMX. In 2022 she exhibits with CAM Galería, CDMX “Luminosa Obscuridad” and “Voces de Sombra” together with the Juan Soriano Foundation gallery, in Poland. From 2022 to date, she presents her work with CAM Galería and has been an SNCA grantee since 2021. Her work is in international collections such as the Washington Consulate of Foreign Relations (2021), the Berkowitz Contemporary Foundation (2021), Tara Westover (2021), Joshua Sobel (2020), Arthur Zegelbone (2020), Valeria Luiselli (2017) and the Getty Conservation Institute (1997) in the United States and the Rufino Tamayo Museum (2020), VI Yucatan National Biennial (2014 ), Museo de Arte de Sonora (2015) and other private collections such as Carla Rippey, Edgar Orlaineta, Teresa Marmolejo, Ana Elena Patiño, Miguel Ángel Cordera, Pierre Azan, Eric Namour, among others.

— CAM Galería