Alexandra Baker

Year of birth: 1991
Where do you live: Memphis, TN (historically the lands of the Chickasaw and Choctaw people
Your education: I have a BA in English Literature from the University of Vermont
Describe your art in three words: healing, colorful, evocative
Your discipline: painting
Website | Instagram

You began painting in 2018. What inspired you to start creating art at that moment in your life?

I was living in San Diego, California in 2018 and I began to feel this Divine Pressure to paint. Although I’d never been a painter or taken a painting class since childhood, I felt an unrelenting pressure to paint that I couldn’t explain. One day I saw a sale at a local art store and bought a bunch of canvas and paints. My first painting was variations of white and yellow on a 48 x 48 inch canvas and I was so proud. When I began painting it felt like I was breathing fully for the first time.

You describe painting as a form of healing. Can you share a specific moment when painting helped you process or overcome something?

Painting helps me cope with life on a daily basis. Many of my early paintings were a way of storytelling about past traumas. Things I had never dared speak about, but painting about them felt safe. I could tell the story of what happened through textures and colors and it was my own little language. In doing this I let those tales live outside my body – much like the catharsis people find by writing in a journal. Painting continues to heal me, the process is so soothing!

Alexandra Baker | Ancestors’ Song | 2025

How do color and texture play a role in your process of healing—both for yourself and your viewers?

I find that certain pairings of colors together evoke specific emotional responses. Putting white s with certain pinks can certainly soothe my anxiety as I’m painting. People often tell me that they feel soothed in certain ways that align with what I was feeling when I created the piece. Texture can also really jump out from the canvas and grab hold of your emotions!

Your work has been featured in British Vogue and Vanity Fair London. How did those opportunities come about, and how did they influence your artistic journey?

One day I received an email from a curator at British Vogue asking if I would be interested in showing my work in their magazine. I agreed to a meeting and the rest is history! I don’t believe publications influence my painting practice at all but they certainly have helped with painting sales to Collectors who respect these publications.

Alexandra Baker | Mermaid Soup | 2024

What does a typical day in your Memphis studio look like?

A typical day in the studio has natural light pouring in from the windows, some incense, a bit of music, and my cat Sheba. Sheba is of course the home studio manager and mostly in charge of everything important. My paints are strewn all over the floor and I like to open a window to let Spirit in.

Do the cities you’ve lived in—Boston, Memphis, San Diego, and your time in Italy—appear in your artwork in some way?

I believe every life experience I’ve ever had informs my work, including the cities I’ve lived in. The small town I lived in in Italy was not a place where I could be openly gay and much of my work celebrates the freedoms I feel to be out and proud that I find at home in Memphis, Tennessee.

Many of my paintings also feature the Ocean which I was Blessed to live by in San Diego, California for seven years. My love letters to the water are never-ending.

Alexandra Baker | Angel Wings | 2024

Is there a particular painting that holds the most emotional significance for you? Why?

I have a self-portrait that hangs in my bedroom that I will never sell. The painting captures my Spirit in a painting and I hold it near and dear to my heart.