Bio
BIOGRAPHY
Alessandra Rossi
Alessandra was born in Friuli in northern Italy in 1968, but spent most of her formative years in Venice, in the company of a vibrant international artistic community. Alessandra graduated from Maryland Institute College of Art in the USA in 1991 with a BA in Fine Arts. During her time in America, she also worked with established artists such as Leon Golub, Nancy Spero and Rodney Allen Greenblatt under the Arts Education programme at AICA in New York.
She returned to Venice in 1992 and began her career as an artist in the city’s abandoned palazzos, doing site specific installations drawing on the textures of the multi-layered Venetian architecture. She moved on to painting in studio, and set up a collective called Aqualta with English, German, French, Spanish and other Italian artists. Although working in different media, including jewellery and photography, the group drew on each other’s experiences and influences, to present a series of combined shows in their native countries, including Paris and London.
An installation at the Querini Stampaglia in Venice entitled Livelli in Input saw her collaborate with English artist Craig Wood to create a large computer- manipulated image printed on PVC (8m x4m) exploring the loss of pictorial definition at scale with the loss of Venice’s culture to a newer, more vicarious state that claims to uphold it.
Her debut in Australia was at Gadfly Gallery, which showed a selection of monoprints. Alessandra was invited to move to Perth to work on paintings and sculpture for the 1998 Festival of Perth, including an extended residence at Claremont School of Art.
Since then she has held many solo and group exhibitions at Greenhill Galleries, Gallows Gallery, PICA, Art Gallery of Western Australia , Moores Building Contemporary, Art Gallery, Fremantle Art Center and for Sculpture by the Sea Cottesloe and Bondi and Sculpture at Bathers.
In 2011 she was the recipient for the Helen Lempriere Scholarship for sculpture which facilitated a residency and an exhibition at the SVA of New York in 2012.
Alessandra work has often explored the relationship between what is visible and what is invisible, what is superficial, on the surface and what is inside, deeper, hidden. She successfully conjures an ambiguous environment, one where presence is virtual, where people exist in the memory of place.
Her work lies between narrative and abstraction, responding to her instinct, her discernment with space and time, as an expression of her moods and thoughts. Time is essential in her work, as the development of a theme unfolds with the working out of thoughts and emotions on canvas, helping her to comprehend that which eludes her.
Alessandra sees fragments of a larger dialogue in her paintings, aspects of a more complex existence, and through them seeks to articulate the intangible, to take the viewer to places they might not necessarily go on their own, somewhere between fantasy and reality, between actual and fiction.
In her installations she has often used earth, grass, water and other natural materials to surprise and challenge pre-conceived ideas of inside and outside, prompting us to think about our perceptions when we’re on different soils.
Her most recent works incorporates 3D printing to express links between nature and technology.
From the outside in terms of relationship and feeling, sculpture has become another means of expressing the work that she continues to explore in her paintings, playing with the imagination, looking for what is beneath, inside, hidden
Education
1991
Bachelor of Fine Arts, Maryland Institute College of Art, U.S.A.
Painting and Contemporary Art at A.I.C.A., New York, U.S.A.
1989
Painting at Pratt Institute Venice, Italy
Painting and Drawing at S.A.C.I., Florence, Italy
Selected Exhibitions
2020
Sculpture by the Sea,Cottesloe, WA
New work, Solo painting exhibition Sometimes.Gallery WA
Sculpture@Barthers, Fremantle, WA
2019
Invited Artist for sculpture inside, Sculpture by the Sea Bondi, NSW
Sculpture by the Sea, Cottesloe WA
2018
Transfield Australian Invited Artist Bondi NSW
Brilliant , Moores Building gallery, Fremantle WA
Gnullar Mia Art Auction, Nyistor Gallery, WA
2017
ArtEx, B Shed Fremantle WA
Home for Brilliant, Moores Building Gallery, Fremantle WA
Sculpture by the Sea Cottesloe,WA
2016
Artist Open House Fremantle WA
Arte Ricca , Cottesloe WA
Sculpture by the Sea ,Invited artist, Bondi NSW
2015
Fremantle Print Award, Fremantle Art Centre , WA
Sculpture by the Sea Bondi NSW
Artist Open House Fremantle
Sculpture @ Bathers Fremantle , WA
Paintings and prints @ Camerich, Claremont WA
2014
Artist Open House Fremantle WA
Sculpture by the Sea, Cottesloe
Arte Ricca, Cottesloe WA
2013
Murals for Parmelia Park commissioned by the City of Fremantle
Pixelated Cloud for Arcadia, temporary public art Fremantle, WA
Sculpture by the sea, Cottesloe WA
Sculpture @ Bathers, Fremantle WA
2012
Dis-Connected, SVA New York City, USA
New work, Gallows Gallery, Perth
Sculpture by the Sea Cottesloe
WA Two Way , Kidogo art Gallery WA
2011
Sculpture by the Sea Bondi NSW
Mnemosyne, solo exhibition, Moores Building, Fremantle
Broken Heart, Venice Sculpture Park, Italy
2010
Sculpture by the Sea, Cottesloe WA
Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi NSW
Melville sculpture walk, Mount Pleasant, Perth
Wanneroo art award, Wanneroo
2009
The Barbie Project, Beaconsfield Primary School, Beaconsfield
Hale School Exhibition, Perth
2008
Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital Biennale Art Award, Tafe art gallery Perth
Art Melbourne 2008, Melbourne
Paintings , Stuart street Gallery, Perth
2007
Art Melbourne 07, Melbourne VIC
Crowded House Solo Exhibition Gallows Gallery
Artopia.art everywhere.Open studio. Fremantle WA
2006
The blue thing, Community project Beaconsfield Primaries WA
Group show at Hale school, perth W.A.
2005
Bunbury Biennale, Bunbury Regional Art Galleries
Bank West Contemporary Art Price, Bunbury Art Galleries,W.A.
2004
Untitled Details, Solo Exhibition, Gallows Gallery, Perth, W.A.
Mine Own Executioner, Mundaring Arts Center, Western Australia
Bank West Contemporary Art Price, P.I.C.A. Gallery, Perth, W.A.
2003
Fresh Paint ’03, Greenhill Galleries, Perth, W.A.
Code Orange, Claremont, W.A.
Art in Bloom 03, Art Gallery of Western Australia
2002
Guildford Grammar Art Exhibition, Perth, Western Australia
Art in Bloom 02, Art Gallery of Western Australia
Public Art Work
2019
Cairns (Marker #123) Transfield Australian Invited Artist Bondi NSW
2017
Sculpture by the Sea Cottesloe,WA
2016
Sculpture by the Sea, Invited artist, Bondi NSW
2015
Sundial, Piazza Roma, Aiello del Friuli (Udine)- Italy
2013
Murals for Parmelia Park commissioned by the City of Fremantle
Pixelated Cloud for Arcadia, temporary public art Fremantle, WA
2011
Broken Heart, Venice Sculpture Park, Venice Italy
Commissions/Collections/Awards
2019
Shortlisted for Public Art project, Norton Street, Leichhardt Sydney
Sculpture by the Sea Sculpture Inside Invited Artist, Bondi NSW
Sculpture by the Sea Artist Choice Award, Cottesloe WA
2018
Transfield Australian Invited Artist, Bondi NSW
12 paintings for 2018 calendary Sot Dal Tor , Italy
2017
Sculpture by the sea Cottesloe, Staff Award
2015
Sundial , Aiello del Friuli - Italy
2013
Parmelia Park, City of Fremantle
Arcadia, City of Fremantle
2011
Helen Lempriere Scholarship
Venice Sculpture Park, Fusina, Venice Italy
2010
The kerry Stokes Collection
2002
Public Display, Window Mural, Perth Council House, W.A.
1995
Livelli in Input, P.A.C.A. London and University of Warwick, U.K.
1994
Open Air Installation, Camping Fusina, Venice, Italy
Professional
2010-14
SxS educational workshops
2012
Artist in residency summer program, SVA, New York
2008
Art Classes at Fremantle Art Centre
2002
Teaching at Edith Cowan University, Western Australia
2000
Lecture at Curtin University, Western Australia
1999-00
Artist in residency at the Colonnade, Western Australia
Artist in residency at Claremont School of Art, Perth, W.A.
Rodney Allen Greenblatt’ s Assistant, New York, U.S.A.
1990
Leon Golub ’s Assistant, New York, U.S.A.
Nancy Spero ’s Assistant, New York, U.S.A.
Curriculum Vitae