Moatzart, aka Alexandra Motiu, is Brighton-based printmaker with a background in both painting and printmaking. Influenced by Dadaism and Surrealism, her work is revelatory of internal struggles through the use of disturbing imagery, the grotesque and carnivalesque. Alexandra’s prints have been described as “very well contained madness“.
Initially working with linocut, Alexandra also started to involve the practice of collage in her work. She started using found materials and images, and looked to artists including Duchamp, Hannah Hoch, The Chapman Brothers, Robert Rauschenberg, Damien Hirst, and publications such as Toilet Paper Magazine for inspiration. Alexandra explains; “I enjoy making these themes accessible to the viewer, in a non-threatening way, but rather so that they are enchanted”.
Printmaking is her preferred medium, and after many encounters with it over the years, she knew there was no other traditional medium that could surpass it. “The reason I get along so well with printmaking is that it allows me to be free and expressive, but always within contained boundaries” states Alexandra. Her encounters with printmaking have depended on her proximity to a printing press, which has recently been limited due to the current pandemic. Although Alexandra will soon be investing in a printing press, she is currently enjoying creating smaller-scale linocut prints.
“Larger prints can be slightly more difficult print without a printing press, but if you use a heavy object to press down on them, like a large book, and you are very careful to put the same amount of pressure evenly and covering the whole surface of the work, you are golden. In some way, due to the larger amount of details in larger prints, they are easier to print, as there is less room for error in the design. When a print has a lot of dark space, the ink can gather strangely, and a lot more accidents can happen.”
For one of her latest linocut series, PINK, Alexandra aimed to create simple and clean cut artworks; “I thought pink was a colour that needed to be cleaner, and not as expressive as my prints usually are“. The series includes imagery of elegant ladies that are a lot simpler in design then the rest of her work, such as another recent linocut series, The Circus. For this project Alexandra looked at the oddities and eccentricities of the circus which she finds endlessly fascinating and inspiring.
“...The balance that the circus represents between rebellion against society and being its biggest prey, I believe that we should find in it a way to take back the notions surrounding it. Our oddities and eccentricities should indeed have entire shows built around them, and they should be celebrated in this way, as they are what makes us fantastic. This should be not in a way of laughing at them, but of laughing with them.”
Alexandra has found it incredibly freeing to spend time looking at these interesting characters. She concludes; “I hope they serve as a reminder to you of what makes us all special, and inspire you to love yourself, as strange as you may be. Let your freak flag fly!”
Check out some videos of her printmaking here.
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