Alexandra Collins Featured in New American Paintings
Alexandra Collins (BFA ’24) is featured as a spotlight artist in the 2026 MFA Annual issue of New American Paintings, a special edition of the magazine that showcases 40 emerging student and recent-graduate painters from across the United States. This recognition coincides with her work currently being exhibited in the First Annual Summer Juried Exhibition at New York City’s Viridian Artists gallery, and in Chicago’s Hard Return gallery. Collins recently graduated from Cranbrook Academy of Art with an MFA in painting.
I approach painting as a space of synthesis, where natural forms such as fruit and flowers coalesce with man made materials such as glass into complex perceptual spaces. Vibrant effervescent fields are charged with movement and biomorphic forms that leap and dance across the surface, encompassing themes of abundance, resilience, exuberance, joy, destiny, hope, and multiplicity. Petals resemble ribbons gliding through the air, penetrating juicy, translucent spheres. These spheres represent the currant, a miraculously resilient flora native to the northern hemisphere; noted for being self fertile, disease resistant, drought tolerant, and able to withstand injury against exposure to temperatures as low as ‑40° Fahrenheit. Paired with the lily, which is recognized throughout many different cultures to be a symbol for rebirth and hope, they become representations of resilience, hope, and perseverance. Lush color induces senses of joy and whimsy, while uncanny fruit, and translucent forms create dream-like portals into other worlds, or perhaps, a renewed take on still life.