Giles Alexander probes space for meaning.

Giles Alexander’s work belongs to a long-standing academic tradition of virtuously handled oil paint and precise draughtsmanship, yet he stands aside from this, quite purposefully drawing attention to moments where he departs from tradition. This is not wilful contrariness: Alexander uses and refuses his polished aesthetic as another way of interrogating his world, provocatively challenging the established ‘norm’ and questioning all that we hold dear.

There is a visual pun in his paintings, turning on space as a crucial component of all painting and space, the final frontier. Alexander has always focused his attentions on real and imagined space, often drawing our attention to the shifting boundaries between the two. By suspending painstakingly created figurative elements within optically deep, resined backgrounds the artist successfully conjures an alternative space in the picture plane, generating ambiguity and mystery.

Journeying through fine layers of paint the viewer notices a deep, mirror-like resin veils the image. A paradox of space and surface arises through awareness both of infinite depth and the presence of one’s own reflection.

Religious buildings are designed to lead us in, amplify our sense of experience and heighten belief. Alexander’s paintings operate on the same principle, drawing us in and urging us to go deeper into the architecture of the universe.

Alexander’s faultless execution pays homage to the master masons and artisans of religious antiquity. Ultimately the work questions exactly what it is we are worshiping. 

‘While there are a great many artists with the patience and physical skills to create beautiful detailed realist paintings, there are very few I consider to be “post modern”, contemporary and history making. In fifty years I have essentially found 10 artists a decade, or one a year on average, who have, as they say “caught my eye”. Giles Alexander is the most recent one.’ 
Louis K. Meisel – April, 2018 (American author, art dealer and proponent of the photorealist art movement, having coined the term in 1969.)

September 2019 will see Alexander’s first opportunity to present a major body of work to a US audience—at Louis K. Meisel Gallery in New York. The exhibition, titled Eternally: Far Away, So Close, will consider various historical constructs of the history of (wo)man and how they have come to define the way we see ourselves, view our world, and our place within the grander scheme.