ALEXANDRA ROSS
(b. 1968, London, UK)

Alexandra Ross is a visual artist based in Cape Town (South Africa). She was born in London but educated and raised in Johannesburg. Ross completed her master’s degree in fine art at the University of the Witwatersrand in 2008. Her first solo exhibition, Viewpoint (2007) received the Brait-Everard Read Art Award. The installation of large-scale photographs was both a critique of gallery/art power relations as well as an investigation of the relationships of space and time, illusion, and reality.

Though Ross is known primarily as a painter, her diverse oeuvre encompasses drawing, printmaking, paper collage, assemblage sculpture, photography, video, and installation - her conceptual and philosophical concerns remain consistent, and all her work relates in one way or another to photography. The window is also a recurring theme, appearing as both leitmotif and as metaphor. Broadly, her work explores the relationship between reality and illusion and reflects on the complexities of representation. It also seeks to evoke the ephemeral, elusive and transient nature of reality.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2023 Looking Out To The Sea To See / Everard Read Gallery Franschhoek

2017 Twenty Thousand Apparitions / Everard Read Gallery, Johannesburg

2016 How to Boil an Egg / Kalashnikovv Gallery, Johannesburg

2013 A Matter of Light & Breath / Room, Johannesburg

2011 1:1 / David Krut Projects, Johannesburg

2009 In Search of Lost Time / David Krut Projects, Johannesburg

2008 In Camera / (two-person show with David Ross) / Resolution Gallery, Johannesburg

2007 Viewpoint / Everard Read Gallery, Johannesburg

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2021 Les Amis Invisible / Galerie En Art Point de Frontière, Ventabren, France

2018 3y3k / Twilsharp Studios, Johannesburg

2017 Collage / Kalashnikovv Gallery, Johannesburg

 2y2k / Twilsharp Studios, Johannesburg

2015 The Black Cube Sessions / Kalashnikovv Gallery, Johannesburg

2012 Alptraum / Goethe Gallery, Johannesburg

 Dog / Gerard Sekoto Gallery, Johannesburg

 Joburg Fringe / Johannnesburg

2011 Agter Die Berge / 7Hours, Berlin

 Long Leash / Temporärity, Berlin

 Joburg Fringe / Johannnesburg

 Figures of Speech / jozi art:lab, Johannesburg

2010 7th Berliner Kunstsalon / Berlin

 View From The South / Everard Read, Johannesburg

 Joburg Art Fair / Everard Read & David Krut

2009 The Great South African Nude / Everard Read, Johannesburg

 Supermarket / Muti Gallery, Cape Town

 Joburg Art Fair / Everard Read & David Krut

2008 Joburg Art Fair / Everard Read

2005 5 Women / Gesseau Gallery, Johannesburg

2004 Young Visions / Gerard Sekoto Gallery, Johannesburg

RESIDENCIES & AWARDS

2022 Everard Read Residency at Leeu Estates / Franschhoek, South Africa

2010 kunst:raum Residency / Sylt, Germany

2008 Nirox Foundation Residency / Cradle of Humankind, South Africa

2007 Brait-Everard Read Art Award / Everard Read Johannesburg, South Africa