Alexandria Coe

Drawing has always enabled Alexandria Coe to imagine a different life and escape into another world. Inspired by real people and the physicality of bodies, Coe draws from life models. Coe studied textile design at Chelsea School of Art, London, and in 2015 graduated with a MA in Fashion Communications from Central Saint Martins. It was during this time, she returned to her love of drawing.

Her work acts as self-care in dialogue with her own body and holds cathartic values. Also a meditative process, Coe transforms bodies into minimalist lines and curves : creating movements with a simple mark on paper. Primarily working with charcoal, this technique embodies her ethos and materialises her organic and intuitive practice. In a need to strip bodies away from any surplus, Coe proposes a figuration by contours.

With her drawings, Coe aspires to remove bodies from any social construct. If drawing them is a freeing practice, it’s also  a form of liberty for her female models. Stripped away from any expectation, assumption, and the male gaze, she considers the act of drawing a “verb to play with ideas”. By portraying the female form, Coe explores her own feminism and is able to accept her own evolving version of womanhood. Through a process of self-acceptance, she celebrates the body’s rawness and primal needs, exploring themes such as love and sexuality. An exploration of a broad spectrum of emotions, Coe’s drawings can be found in her publication Lovers, 2021.

An image-maker, Coe’s drawings function as “snapshots”; they are fleeting moments captured. However, most recently, she has been taking her drawings beyond the limitations of paper to interact with space, architecture, and her environment. Based between London and Athens, Coe is hoping that the Mediterranean light will guide her in a new direction. By re-interpreting  the female body, Coe immerses us in the delicate intimacy of the female condition.