Silent Disco: Two Works in Conversation by Alexandra Collins

Board Member Alexandra Collins Discusses her recent exhibition on campus, Silent Disco.

Outside of my position on the UMMA Student Advisory Board, my time at the University of Michigan is spent as a dedicated senior at the Stamps School of Art and Design, where I am pursuing a BFA with a concentration in painting. Now, I’m thrilled to highlight my solo exhibition, Silent Disco, which was on view in the Stamps building from November 3rd – November 27th.

Silent Disco featured the work I recently completed during my UM-awarded Anderson Ranch Arts Center residency, where I was sent by Penny Stamps School of Art & Design faculty to study painting for a portion of my summer in Snowmass Village, located in Aspen Colorado. The result of this whirlwind experience,  Divine Intervention, was shown in conversation with another recent work, Solo Act, in the North West wing of the Stamps School of Art and Design, directly outside of the Stamps Senior Studios.

My painting practice surrounds inquiries regarding how color, light, and form have the potential to influence space. I interrogate the canvas by obstructing organic and inorganic matter through the synthesis of unrelated forms into networks of cohesive visual information. These complex networks of forms serve as the result of my profound curiosity regarding the threshold between the real and fake- as I am turning the dial between the two, locating various levels of ferocity in each work.

This exhibition acted as a sample viewing for my senior thesis, Television Ephemera, a body of paintings that will be shown in the Stamps School of Art & Design during the Spring of 2024, as a part of the Penny Stamps annual senior thesis exhibition. For more of my work and information, see alexandracollinsart.com.