We recently connected with Alejandra Phelts and have shared our conversation below.

Alejandra, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Do you feel you or your work has ever been misunderstood or mischaracterized? If so, tell us the story and how/why it happened and if there are any interesting learnings or insights you took from the experience?

I did a series of paintings called the Cart series, and the main theme is the automobile. About 20 years ago in one of my exhibitions of this series, I was in front of one of my works when a recognized artist came to observe it as well. He began to share with me out loud his admiration for the artist, his use of color, the concept, etc but at all times referring to the unknown artist with masculine adjectives, assuming that the creator, in this case, me, was a man. Revealing the real identity of the artwork´s author he was surprised by my choice of subject, to which I replied that we all spent the same amount of time in man´s favorite machine. I’m glad to say nowadays I hardly get that kind of comments.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

I’m a Mexican woman, mother, daughter, sister, and artist. I first encountered art whilst traveling to Europe to study it, to learn about the different pictorial currents and aesthetic trends. As a result, I returned with a greater interest in painting than before. I’m considered a border artist. My works are developed in permanent series, merging the treatment of a specific theme with the exploration of artistic practices and narratives that expand and diversify through the paintings.

Portraiture is another relevant theme in my works, Always as an interaction between individuality and collectivity, the portraits are at once, both one and many women. Installation art and performance have also been part of my creative practices. My work has been shown in more than 60 exhibitions in Mexico, Peru, Argentina, Brasil, the United States, China, Indonesia, Japan, Italy, Oman, and Paris.

My book has just come out, Edited by the Secretary of Culture, it is in English and Spanish and in September I will present it at the San Diego Museum of Art, It would be very good to mention that it was written by Blanca González Rosas, she is a very important art critic and Art Curator at a national and international level. The other writer of my book Victoria James Art Curator based in Miami.

Can you share your view on NFTs? (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)

I think it’s a good tool for artists in the sense that you can sell your artwork independently from your art, it’s a resource to certify your artwork’s authenticity, I think artists have to be on the lookout for new technologies and tendencies in the art world.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

The pandemic was definitely a turning point for everyone. As an artist, traveling, connecting with people, and overall creating is very important, and all of this had to be changed in a drastic way. Getting to share my art became much more difficult, the dynamic of participating in events was limited as well as the way I created my artworks. two years worth of events, biennales, and expositions were canceled, there was no easy way to compensate for that loss. But something changed in the way I took directions in my creative process. before I would work only in one series at a time, end to finish, but during the pandemic, I was able to do at least three at the same time, which gave me so much freedom. I was able to connect art as a support system for the medical workers who were in the front line fighting the pandemic, a series of limited edition artworks sold to generate funds for the cause.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.alejandraphelts.com/index.php?lang=es
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alejandraphelts/?hl=es
• Facebook: https://es-la.facebook.com/alephelts
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alejandra-phelts-9056ab90/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCW168C9mT-DdYYLV0UMtoJg