Local Acrylic Artist Displays Work in Link Gallery
Kylie Mitchell
Artist Alexandra Hall presented her work at a reception held at Link Gallery on Saturday, Nov. 3, 2018.
“It is my hope that I force my audience to exercise their imagination, that my works inspire conversation and that they evoke joy,” Hall said.
Born in Indianapolis, Hall moved to Fort Wayne when she was one year old, and believes the town greatly helped foster her art. “They’ve been a really great community and really accepting of my goofy style,” she said. “I very rarely run into someone who doesn’t like what I do in this area and it has been really encouraging.”
Hall received a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science and Slavic languages and literature from Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind. After graduate school, she took a year off when she began painting. While working at a riverside bar, her customers were the inspiration for what her website refers to as her first “anthropomorphic, slack-eyed frogs on a canvas.”
Her part-time hobby quickly grew into a profession. By late 2014, Hall was working as a full-time artist, and now travels across the country exhibiting her work in festivals and gallery shows.
She is very engaged in the arts community. She is the website and social media chair for the Fort Wayne Artists Guild, chairperson on the Wunderkammer Company Education Committee, a member of Artlink, and a manager of Art This Way.
Hall is also committed to bringing more art into downtown Fort Wayne by working alongside the Fort Wayne Downtown Improvement District. The Program, known as Art This Way, will be similar to mural programs in Nashville, Denver, Cincinnati and abroad. In 2018 alone, this program has brought four new murals to downtown.
Along the way, she had many people who inspired her. “My imaginative spirit is born from the people who encouraged me to dream, to see things differently, and to live fearlessly,” she said. “Every work is influenced by a culmination hundreds of little moments, stories, and extraordinary life experiences.”
One of her most frequently asked questions is how she is able to come up with different pieces of artwork. “I enjoy sharing my colorful and vivid imagination, but it is sometimes hard to explain how all the ideas that floated around in my head merged into something like a walrus having tea,” she said.
Over the years, she has won several awards and recognition that include 2018 Celebrate Downtown Award for Art This Way, 2017 Pearl Street Arts Festival, 2017 Bishop Dwenger High School Alumni Hall of Fame, 2017 3 Place Painting Water Based at Ridgway Rendezvous Art Festival, 2016 2 Place Painting Water Based at Ridgway Rendezvous Art Festival, 2015 2 Place in Show at Art on the Riverfront, and 2015 People’s Choice Award at Wunderkammer Company and Three Rivers Festival.
She is very thankful for her followers and refers to her journey as “following me down the rabbit hole,” she said. “It is my hope that the viewer is able to follow my sometimes fractured and wild creative process, from the first glimpse at a foggy inspiration, to a sketch done in a cafe, and, finally, to a completed large-scale work of art.” Her artwork remains displayed at the Link Gallery in Otho Winger Memorial Hall.