Biography

Alexandra Hayes is a London based artist. She received her BA in Fine Art from City and Guilds of London Art School in 2021. Her work analyses how belief systems function in history and contemporary society. Through visual comparisons of religion, politics, news cycles, and historical art movements, Hayes dissects how these authorities can convince or convert. Today’s society is bombarded with information via the internet, which makes fact and fiction seem interchangeable. In our visually saturated culture, authenticity and reliability come into question when we are reliant on the fast and easy. Hayes deconstructs these ideas through collaging contemporary symbols with historical artworks. The opulence of Christian iconography, the manipulation of political propaganda and the bluntness of photojournalism are some of the subjects which are cut up and displaced. These ideas translate as paintings which at first read as familiar landscapes. However, with a closer look, they unsettle us with strange and twisted views of everyday signs and images. The paintings link a history monopolised by political, religious, and moral narratives with today’s anxiety-provoking abundance of often biased information.