“Through these works, Alexander records the internal processing of absence, navigating the vastness of personal grief and mourning, alongside the microscopic, addressing the cycles of life, death and cosmological time that we exist within.” Ciara Hickey, curator, 2024
“Believing they had witnessed his departure, I gathered moss, wild cotton and grasses from the mountain side where he died.”
Telescopic Starscapes; Unfixed anthotypes of Aquarius crossing Omagh, 18/5/19; December 2023
“Ignoring the other stars I traced the path of Aquarius on the day he died. It left the sky around the time I’d figured he must have gone. With the agreement of constellations, I set the first starscape on a sheet of plant pigment to expose.”
Stereoscopic Sandscapes; Phone footage diptypch; 2.08 minutes looped; November 2023
“Grief shifted into ritualistic mourning. Sand travelled to the water, pulled by either the wind or the moon. Everything appeared to be beckoning, suggesting itself as a clue, a link, a sign, as if to ease the shock of his sudden disappearance. As if absence was not caused by dying but was a mystery to be solved.”
Joan Alexander 