Alexandria Coe x Little Greene
Artist Alexandria Coe, used our paint to create beautiful murals at the Serchia Gallery. Here we spoke to Christine Serchia, owner of the Gallery, about the exhibition.
Please could you tell us about your gallery?
Serchia Gallery is a residential and completely not-for-profit gallery residing in my Victorian home on a hillside in Cotham, Bristol. Founded in the summer of 2021, we celebrate contemporary artists, who make visible what would otherwise never be seen. The gallery hosts an artist-in-residence programme, ‘Artwork from Home’ welcoming practioners to stay with us, to create artwork unique to the space, and to interact with the community through a constellation of public and private events, artist talks, workshops, and openings. It’s been a wonderful start, with an incredibly warm welcome from the creative community of Somerset.
Would you tell us a little bit about the artist, Alexandria Coe and introduce her work?
Alexandria’s indelible work is about intimate relationships, with the self and with others. She simplifies complex human emotions, with minimal e‑ort of line, and her expressions of the female form, beyond aesthetics, reconsider relationships with gender, with identity, the human body and reveal an honest investigation of what actually exists; what we actually see. For her collaboration with Little Greene, Alexandria points to home and to relationships as her muse. She created Ma Maison / Mon Coeur; a beautiful experiential and site-specific collection of hand-painted murals alluding to inspiration from Jean Cocteau's paintings at Villa Santo Sospir, except with her own gaze, informed from her own relationships, and perspective.
Click here to see more of Alexandria’s work.
Why did you choose Little Greene for the collaboration?
My introduction to Little Greene came by recommendation from my trusted friend, Nadia Higham, founder of Orly Projects, who through her beautiful design practice has demonstrated a devout understanding of colour. I learned that Little Greene was a family-led, environmentally friendly, and a British-made brand who shares a partnership with The National Trust, a partnership embracing archivism, restoration, and reinvention, and one that also creates colour inspired by special historic homes and places. Given the concept, expression of colour, the quality of the medium, and the historic setting reflecting home as its muse, the collaboration with Little Greene aligns beautifully with Alexandria's experiential installation, Ma Maison / Mon Coeur (My Home / My Heart) offering a commemoration of her mark making.
Please could you tell us about your experience with the paint?
Alexandria's Little Greene colour of choice was Lamp Black in an Absolute Matt finish. I remember opening the paint and being introduced to a rich and vivid pigment. The specificity of the slate hue and the pure matt finish was so decidedly gray, dark but not quite black. A tonality with integrity, which was perfect for Alexandria's linear work. She mentioned how brilliant the colour, texture, and process of painting was throughout her installation. Every expression of line she composed made an immediate visual impact, the hue was dimensionally vibrant and a completely perfect matt. Even with a singular coat, every mark became a gesture. As affecting as the artwork it enabled the creation of.
How do you choose which artists to exhibit?
My selection of artists is always about their artwork as a composite: the strength of concept, the context of its message, the quality of visual syntax, and the execution of thought. The American novelist, William Burroughs, describes the role of artmaking as 'creative observation; creative viewing' and it's the fulfilment of this observation that is at the heart of my curation: "Nothing exists until or unless it is observed. An artist is making something exist by observing it. And their hope for other people is that they will also make it exist by observing it." I look for artists who offer meaning in uniquely unimagined ways with the ability to inspire alterations in perspective. Human beings who are curious and who compose interesting ideas that have the ability to make memorable, distinctive work; which extends imagination to reveal that there is always more possible than what currently exists. The artists who I invite to exhibit at Serchia Gallery, within my home, are the ones who have made alterations on my own perception and have realised a way of seeing that would not exist without them. My hope in sharing their work is that their thoughts contribute to a collective visual memory, which become a collaboration and continued dialogue with every person who observes it.
Find out more here.Ma Maison, Mon Coeur - Alexandria Coe x Little Greene
Artist Alexandria Coe, used our 'Lamp Black' to create beautiful murals at the Serchia Gallery.
Video by: Matilda Hill Jenkins (@matildahilljenkins)
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