Claire

Alexander, in the tradition of collage, is pursuing a very personal obsession of creating narrative scenarios in small format. Using antiquarian books, he makes the work simultaneously an exploration and a deconstruction of nostalgia.

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We create our own past from fragments of reality in a process that combines the willful aspects of remembering and forgetting with the coincidental and unconscious. By using pre-existing media as a starting point, certain boundaries are set by the material, those Alexander aims to transform through his creative process. Thus, an encyclopedia can become a window into an alternate world, much like lived reality becomes its alternate in remembered experience. These books, having been stripped of their utilitarian value by the passage of time, regain new purpose. They are no longer tools to learn about the world, but rather a means to gain insight about oneself.  

Alexander makes book sculptures / cut books by working through a book, page by page, cutting around some of the illustrations while removing others. In this way, he builds the composition using only the images found in the book.