About Alexandra Bowers
Alexandra Bowers is a Phoenix-based artist who received her BFA in 2012 from Arizona State University. Inspired by the natural surrounding environment, Bowers utilizes data collected while exploring to produce wood burned and mixed media studies of plants and animals she finds along the way. Bowers has had the privilege of showcasing her work extensively in Arizona, and across the country, most notably at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. Bowers’ work has been showcased in Sky Harbor International Airport’s Museum Gallery. She was also one of three chosen for the first “Summer Artist Residence Program: Biomimicry Challenge” at the Tempe Center for the Arts. In 2020 her work was chosen for the Tempe Municipal Court as part of the Tempe Public Arts program. It has since been purchased to stay in the Tempe Portable Works permanent art collection. In 2021 Bowers was chosen by the Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum to debut her solo installation “A Murmuration of Found Feathers in Flight.” During lockdown, Bowers asked the community to send her photos of found feathers. She ended up recreating over 800 mixed-media pieces for the installation. She most recently was chosen by the Biomedical Institute of Phoenix and Bentley Gallery to collaborate with a heart specialist from the University of Arizona as part of the first “Art and Researcher” partnership. As Bowers continues on her journey as an artist, she is continuously looking for opportunities within the arts community, including exhibiting both nationally and internationally.
Artist Statement
My name is Alexandra Bowers, and I was born and raised in the Sonoran Desert. As an artist focusing on the natural world, my intention is to find ways the environment and our personal lives intersect and converse with one another. Utilizing the wood-burning process known as “pyrography,” paired with wax water-soluble pigment, my work depicts the indigenous plants and animals that continue to live around my neighborhood and city streets. Over the years I’ve witnessed technology and made-made structures detach individuals physically and psychologically from our arid surroundings. Urban sprawl has forced our habitat to either vanish or adapt. As we pave, develop, and grow our communities, the natural environment diminishes and changes to accommodate its human neighbors. My work is concerned with highlighting these species, to bring our awareness and emotional empathy back to them before they permanently disappear.