About the Artist
Alejandra Regalado (b. 1977, Mexico City) is an Austin based multidisciplinary artist working in photography, sculpture, video, performance, and installation. Regalado received her BA in History of Art from Universidad Iberoamericana and MS in Science Communication from Tec de Monterrey, Mexico; and MPS Digital Photography from School of Visual Arts, New York.Regalado´s work has been shown in galleries and festivals across the US and Mexico. She has been awarded with the Individual Artist Grant from the New York State Council on the Arts. She is the First Place Professional Photographer at Festival Internacional de la Imagen, Mexico. Alejandra has been an artist in residence of the Galería de la Raza, San Francisco and the National Museum of Mexican Art, Chicago.Alejandra creates intimate connections that explore what is beneath the surface of the sub-conscious mind. Driven by a sense of physical and conceptual borders, she evokes the hearts craving for an intellectual self-immersing view into depths of one’s soul of reality.
Artist Statement
For years, I could not sleep. I would get into bed, but I could not sleep. Even if the most intimate space, I felt something might happen outside. I would think, I don´t want the night to come. The moment you go to bed and close your eyes, you remember what happened that day.A solitary figure floats on a mattress in a body of water. I am asleep, or resting, white sheets in a great expanse of water. It is southern Mexico. I document my durational performances; attempt to sleep while afloat in deserted seas, rivers, and lakes. I often locate my performances in cenotes, the site of rituals that have been used for generations, because, I am searching for a way to sleep, to rest in relationship to my ancestors. I draw from the legacies of magical realism, but I use the technology of aerial drone imaging to see myself from above. I place myself, unclothed, outside, afloat, to reconnect my body to the environment that surrounds me. I am no longer from Mexico or from the United States; I am at home in myself. In a time of political turmoil and contested citizenship, my work speaks to the possibility of finding home.When I create these images, I am looking for sensations on my own surface while being exposed to the elements. The wind, the water, the sand, animals, I won’t look at them, I just feel. Cold, heat, pain, fear, warmth, pleasure merge through my skin. The more I get into this process my body and mind will take me to a meditative state. At this place there are no images in my head, just a profound dialog with my body and peace in my soul. I am there.I travelled from New York to the Yucatán Peninsula searching for a way to sleep, to rest in relationship to my ancestors. I draw from the legacies of magical realism, but I use the technology of aerial drone imaging to see myself from above. I place myself, unclothed, outside, afloat, to reconnect my body to the environment that surrounds me. I am no longer from Mexico or from the United States; I am at home in myself. In a time of political turmoil and contested citizenship, my work speaks to the possibility of finding home.