Alejandra Jean-Mairet
Zurich
I explore through my drawing practice. I am interested in the process, in the transformation and the stories generated along. Color and haptic are key elements.
Message
Swiss Peruvian Visual Artist Alejandra Jean-Mairet (*1978) was born and raised in Lima-PE, she currently lives and works in Zurich, Switzerland.
After completing her studies in architecture (Universidad Ricardo Palma, Lima PE, 2000) she began exploring the applied arts and worked as an architect until 2009 year she moved to Switzerland where she graduated from the MA in Fine Arts Program from the Zurich University of the Arts (2014).
During her firsts years in Europe she participated in various multidisciplinary cultural projects in Switzerland, Germany and France. Over the past few years besides her studio practice she dedicates time to guiding and mentoring creative processes and leading workshops of drawing and painting with an experimental approach.
In 2019 she was invited to exhibit her body of work "The Right Hand" at the Helmhaus Zürich (Museum of contemporary art), showing the healing process she went through after her hand surgeries and the role of art during this experience. She was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis at an early age when she was 23 years old.
The work of Alejandra Jean-Mairet features in private collections in Peru, Chile, Ecuador, Switzerland, Germany, France, Australia and the US.
Statement
Alejandra Jean-Mairet is a visual artist with a background in architecture.
Since the end of 2019 she has refocused on her drawing practice, through which she explores. Interested in the process, transformation and narratives that are generated along the way, her work is a manifestation of emotions and experiences using color and haptic experience as a means to express and manifest herself.
When she starts working she is very fast and prolific and tries to let things emerge without the judgment of the eye or the mind. It is about what she processes in the moment and has to remain as pure as possible, without (much) interference from rationalization. Only when the subject has emerged, she continues more calmly, devoting more time to each drawing and dialoguing with it. Her practice fluctuates between intuition and intention.
She draws mainly with oil pastels, pencil, gouache and acrylics. Each medium corresponds to a sensation, soft, bold, hard, liquid, dense. The marks are gestures, manifestations of emotions. The number of sessions she dedicates to a series or a drawing is never the same, once the point of exhaustion or realization is reached, it is done.