BACKGROUND & POSITIONING
Born in 1989 in Paris, Alexandra Galavtine is a painter and sculptor. A self-taught artist, she has developed a contemporary artistic language at the crossroads of pictorial heritage and a decidedly modern vision.
Her work has been exhibited in France and internationally, including in Paris, London, New York, Monaco and Moscow.
Granddaughter of the Russian painter Marat Nikolaïevitch Galavtine, a member of the Union of Artists of the USSR, she was introduced to the foundations of classical painting from an early age.
This early transmission instilled in her a rigorous relationship with materials, precision of gesture and compositional structure, principles that continue to shape her work today.
Her ambition is to make material, light and relief an immediately recognizable signature.
THE GENESIS OF THE WORK
Alexandra’s paintings are based on a sculptural approach to the surface.
Acrylic, spray, resin, fluorescent pigments and gold leaf are combined to create textured surfaces that capture, fragment and transform light.
Her works are not simply to be looked at, they are to be experienced through the movement of the viewer’s gaze, imposing a tangible presence.
Her current collection explores the interplay of gold and deep black, expressing a symbolic tension between light and darkness, order and chaos, purity and richness. Gold becomes a material of power and memory.
Her work questions what we call value. Each painting is a unique piece, with no reproductions.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
Alexandra Galavtine’s work always begins with drawing. Through numerous preparatory sketches, she explores forms and allows the first structures to emerge.
Her inspiration comes primarily from nature, both vegetal and mineral. She observes natural textures closely, rocks, dried surfaces, cracks, fissures, whose tensions and fractures, with organic precision, directly inform her compositions.
After this phase of exploration, she undertakes a search for materials. While the choice of material is essential, it is above all the way she uses it that guides her work.
Her process is experimental, mistakes are an integral part of constructing the piece, gradually shaping and refining its artistic direction. Mortar allows her to sculpt the surface and build relief. Gold is then applied to enhance the material, capture light, and reveal the created topography, while black pigment accentuates shadows and reinforces depth.
Each work thus becomes a dialogue between raw material and light, between fracture and sublimation.
