Alexandra Jonscher
B. 1997, Chicago Illinois USA
Lives and works on Cameraygal and Gadigal Country, Sydney Australia
Alexandra Jonscher is an American-Australian artist and curator exploring the entanglements of humans and technology. Originally trained in abstract painting, her practice is rooted in mark-making and expressive gestural abstraction. She draws from Isabelle Graw ‘The Value of Liveliness’ (2016), which states that “painting is particularly well positioned in [our contemporary digital] society because it gives the impression of being saturated with the life of its author.” Her work approaches painting as an index of the human interface responding to life in the digital age.
Her work expands from painting to installation, sculpture, new media and assemblage combining traditional practices with new media, mechanic, and digital processes, reminiscent of a human encountering a machine with childlike imagination and play. Drawing from the histories of modernist painting, early net art, popular culture, and Internet culture, she grapples with what it means to be human in the digital age, interrogating identity construction, selfhood, world-building and the uncanny valley of the virtual world. Recently she has been researching collaborations with generative artificial intelligence software as a tool in her painting practice, employing a method of ‘abstract prompting’ to try and prompt the technology to be its own creative agent. Her research aims to employ AI as a collaborator for creative world-building, presenting surreal depictions of humanities’ enmeshment in technology that abstract what is soulful, human and real, while navigating the complexities of authorship, agency and creative expression in this unique technological moment.
CV
EDUCATION
2021 Bachelor of Visual Art (First Class Honours), Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney
EXHIBITIONS
Solo Exhibitions
2022 Touchscreens, Prop Gallery
2020 Looking for something meaningful and loving, Sydney Art Collective, Studio Residency
2020 Ctrl+Alt+Delete, AIRspace Projects
2019 Leftovers, Dedspace Gallery
2019 The Limit Does Not Exist, Down/Under Space
2019 All Cats Have Nine Lives, Gaffa Gallery
2017 A Day in the Life, Dedspace Gallery
Selected Group Exhibitions
2024 Delicate Proximities, Vantage Points takeover at Post Office, Port Ewan, New York
2024 The House of Confluence - Living Room Portfolio, Residency Unlimited, Govenors Island House, New York, USA
2024 SVA Open Studios, School of Visual Arts New York, New York, USA
2023 TABOO, Bankstown Art Centre, Bankstown NSW
2023 Horse Girl, curated by DARLINGS, Puzzle Gallery, Sydney NSW
2023 EMERGING 2023, Gosford Regional Gallery, NSW
2022 Plexus: KUDOS x NAS x SCA, Abstract Thoughts Gallery, Darlinghurst NSW
2022 Trigon, Darlings Gallery (Online Exhibition, Artsy.com)
2022 Soft Copies, Annandale Galleries, Annandale NSW
2022 Cave 2.0, Cave Offsite International, Curated by Seamus Heidenreich, Regional NSW
2022 Inaugural Exhibition, Sketch Collective Gallery, Surry Hills
2021 New Contemporaries, Sydney College of the Arts Gallery, Camperdown NSW
2021 Blank Page, Point Five Gallery, Marrickville NSW
2020 Hatched: The National Graduate Exhibition, Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, Perth WA
2020 Some Thing: A Grad Show, Gaffa Gallery, Sydney NSW
2019 Sydney College of the Arts Undergraduate Degree Show, Sydney College of the Arts Gallery, Rozelle NSW
2019 Womens Work, Gaffa Gallery, Sydney NSW
2018 USU Creative Awards, Verge Gallery, Darlington NSW
2017 USU Creative Awards, Verge Gallery, Darlington NSW
2017 Experimentum, University of Sydney Holme Building, Camperdown NSW
Art Events and Fairs
2024 FOUNDATIONS Art Fair, DARLINGS, artsy.com
2023 Cut N Polish: Artist Car Boot Sale, DARLINGS, Carriageworks, Sydney NSW
2022 Made by Hand Art & Design Market, Hazlehurst Art Centre, Hazlehurst NSW
2022 Cut N Polish: Artist Car Boot Sale, Carriageworks, Sydney NSW
2020 Naughties Buy Nature: Bushfire Relief Auction, Mosman High School, Mosman
2019 Vivid Afterparty: Queens of the Jungle, Down/Under Space
2017 The Other Art Fair: Sydney, Australia Technology Park, Redfern
2017 Verge Festival, Dedspace Gallery, Rozelle
​
Commissions
2023 Slipstream, collaboration with Andrew Christie, ReVITALise Rainbow Tunnels, Ashfield NSW, commissioned by Transport for NSW
2023 Slipstream, collaboration with Andrew Christie, Wynscreen, Wynyard Station, commissioned by Transport for NSW
2023 'Slipstream', collaboration with Andrew Christie, Sydney WorldPride 2023, Wynscreen, Sydney, NSW, commissioned by Transport for NSW
RESIDENCIES
AWARDS AND PRIZES
2024 Best Small Project for ReVITALise Creative Tunnels Program, Asia Pacific Place Leaders Award
2024 Best Street Event or Festival for ReVITALise Creative Tunnels Program, Australian Street Art Awards
2022 Fishers Ghost Art Award, Open Prize Selected Finalist, Campbelltown Arts Centre, Cambelltown NSW
2019 Zelda Stedman Young Artist Scholarship, University of Sydney, NSW
2017 Honourable Mention, USU Creative Awards, Verge Gallery
PRESS AND JOURNALISM
Press
2023 dither_art Studio Interview
2022 Demure Mag, Issue 0.8
2021 Lobster Magazine, PEACE OF MIND
2021 Mosman Living, Former Mosman High Student Allie Jonscher is an Emerging Artist to Watch
Journalism
2018 - 2022 Host of Culture Guide, (Thursday Arvos with Tommy Codling), FBi Radio
2022 Highlights from rivus: The 23rd Biennale of Sydney, FBi Radio
2022 Sydney Arts Post-Lockdown: 6 new galleries open in Sydney, FBi Radio
2019 Creative Crush: Carmen Glynn-Braun, FBi Radio​
2024-25 Primrose Park Artist Studio Residency, North Sydney Council, Sydney, NSW
2024 Residency Unlimited, New York, USA
2024 Painting & Mixed Media, Summer Residency Program, School of Visual Arts New York, USA