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Words by Josue Rawmirez, edited by Gisela Zuniga
Rusteberg Gallery will be hosting Alexandria Canchola’s solo show, Typecast, in which she will debut a newly completed series of work consisting of gouache paintings, hand lettering, 3D printing, and installations connecting narrative and emotion. On view from October 1 until October 25, with the opening reception being held on Friday, October 4, from 6-8 p.m. in Brownsville, Texas. The show will feature a selection of works devoted to the odd joy of voyeurism. Studying the roles we cast on others so that they are of a “type of person” a “type of character”.
The artwork created by Alexandria Canchola was made as part of her continuing quest to document the everyday. The work seen in Typecast, is inspired by and draws from narrative, blurring the distinctions between our perceptions of reality and our creations within it. She believes there is a strange satisfaction one experiences in their voyeuristic tendencies; watching others and forming stories about people that one never truly knows. “A person will never have all the facts. Because the facts are still a form of fiction. The facts can still steer us wrong because they are seen through our own cloudy, foggy, scratched, colored lens.”
From there it was from zero to a hundred. I started taking art classes. I fell into ceramics and I was no good at it but I loved it.
She has investigated narrative through the combination of word and image, studying their relationship as they simultaneously merge together and break apart. This work showcases the significance that typographical forms possess using letters as formal design elements as well as basic symbols of communication. In contrast to the illustration work, which is based in narrative; a personal form of storytelling that helps us to make sense of the everyday, of the societal patterns we see and the relationships we experience.Thecolor palettes used subvert the viewer’s idea of emotion; centering on themes such as loneliness, solitude, and voyeurismand showcasing these emotions in the bright powerful hues in which we feel them.
Alexandria Canchola is a designer and illustrator, currently based in Corpus Christi, Texas, who loves drawing and painting as much as dragging and dropping. Her career in the arts was not quite a straight-line path, but instead included detours in the fields of journalism and filmmaking. She has a bachelor’s degree in Government and Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin and an MFA in 2D Design from the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. In 2018, she completed residencies at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, California and Zea Mays Printmaking in Florence, Massachusetts. She is now an Assistant Professor for the Graphic Design program at Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi eagerly working to assist her students in their quest for knowledge so that they may feel inspired not only through the attainment of skills and methods of design but in becoming critical thinkers.
For more information about the exhibition, you can reach Alexandria Canchola by email at alexandriacanchola@gmail.com.
