First Impressions - Alessandra Maria

The Brooklyn-based artist explores her key influences

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What, outside of art, has most influenced your artwork through the years?

Probably fantasy literature. When I was a kid, books like these were my escape from the mundane. Reading expanded my imagination and inspired me to make up all of these wild worlds in my head. I’m currently in the middle of preparing for a solo show, and I started out preparing by asking myself why I started drawing in the first place. And I realised the reason was because when I was young, I wanted an outlet for all these worlds and societies I was creating. In a way, I’m still doing the exact same thing.

Is there a painting that you saw in your formative years that changed everything? What was it?

Yes, there’s three paintings that really changed my life. The first two were when I was younger: Botticelli’s Primavera, and Da Vinci’s Burlington House Cartoon. I was so gobsmacked by these works when I was about seven years old and saw them for the first time in a book. It was just beyond my comprehension how someone could make something so magical, almost sacred-feeling, and I wanted more than anything to be able to make things that beautiful someday.