ARTIST ANNA ALEXANDRA
Anna-
Alexandra
Bulgaria → Mallorca, 1990
On myth, the primordial feminine, the sea as a living force, and why art begins with the act of observation.
Visual Artist · Poet · Culturologist
anna-alexandra.eu
Philosophy · History of Culture
Textile Sculpture · Performance
Mythology · Anthropology
Nature of the Sea
Anna-Alexandra begins at the root. Not the surface of a subject, not its contemporary form, but the original myth — its etymology, its oldest fear, its first image. Born in Bulgaria in 1990, now based in Mallorca, she works across visual art, poetry and culturology, and the thread connecting all of it is the primordial feminine: the figure before language fixed it, the feminine as earth, as water, as mystery.
Her process is almost ritualistic. Motion, material and context are not production decisions — they are the work. She is currently painting on large-scale canvas, building textile sculptures, and developing La Mar, a project about the feminine nature of the sea, born from an anthropological linguistics text.
Greatest inspirations and influences?
Primitive art. The primordial female figure. Many of my projects return to the feminine image — its mysterious and magical nature, its connection to the earth and to the circle of life. I always start at the root: at the myth, at its etymology.
I look for the connections between passion and fear, between nature and the different images of femininity that have accumulated across cultures and centuries. Mythology, philosophical and anthropological concepts, poetry — these are my materials before any visual material enters the room.
And Matisse — always. His sense of composition, colour and shape. The flatness that isn't flat at all.
Tell us about your creative process.
While I'm in a creative process, I feel like I don't need to be anywhere else or do anything else. It is an incomparable feeling of bliss. I consider my art to be process-based, with an almost ritualistic character. Motion, materials and context have significant impact on the final result — they are not incidental.
At the moment I'm painting on large-scale canvas and building textile sculptures. I would very much like a larger studio this year. The work is outgrowing the space.
"While I'm in a creative process, I feel like I don't need to be anywhere else. It is an incomparable feeling of bliss."— Anna-Alexandra
How has the past year changed your creativity and how you see the world?
The global situation changed the dynamics of everyday life entirely — the way we communicate, how we plan for a future, and perhaps most profoundly, our inner world and our idea of happiness.
After three months of lockdown here in Spain, I began to appreciate the simplest things: walking in nature, going to the beach, being with friends. We need less to be happy than we thought. That shift made me far more observant. I find the simple act of observation to be deep, mysterious, and beautiful. For me, art starts there.
Since the isolation I've also become much more interested in performance — in direct interaction with an audience, and in how poetry can be mixed with visual art. The desire for presence, for live encounter, came back very strong.
Does the art world need to change?
Enormously. It is a dynamic and constantly changing field, and at the same time it can be extremely conservative in certain dimensions and slow to reform. But I'm observing something interesting: artists are communicating more intensively with each other, more openly, more collaboratively. Communities are forming without institutional permission.
There is a kind of emancipation of the modern artist from institutions happening right now, and I really like it. I see it as liberalisation. I don't believe a gallery or an institution can make the work more meaningful — only the work can do that.
What does wellbeing mean to you?
Wellbeing is strongly linked to the pleasure and satisfaction of life. It is a complex combination of emotional, physical and mental factors — but more than anything else, for me it depends on the connection to our inner creative centre and to intuition.
An artist's wellbeing is connected to their ability to express themselves. But this isn't only true of artists — it applies to people in general. We all have the necessity to create. The transformation of inner impulses, feelings and thoughts into something external is part of a deep psychological process, necessary for growth as a person. Expression is not a luxury. It is a need.
A project rooted in myth and its ancient feminine archetypes — exploring the origins of the female image through visual art and poetry.
View Project →A confrontation with the mythological labyrinth — the monster, the threshold, and the transformation that waits inside.
View Project →Starts
There — with the act of observation
Anna-Alexandra works from the oldest place she can find: the myth, the etymology, the primordial image. Her practice is ritual as much as production. The work grows toward the sea, toward the feminine, toward the elemental forces that organised human imagination long before art had a name.
