ALEXIS XAVIA
ALEXIS XAVIA
Artist Statment
Alexis works predominantly with visual art such as film and photography. She has been working in this field for many years, starting in filmmaking. Her work often doesn’t live strictly in reality but is grounded in a way that is still relatable to the audience. She also makes art that speaks to a lot of unspoken or complicated to explain emotions, such as those we didn’t know had names. For example, sonder, the sudden realisation that everyone around you has complicated lives as well. Also, concepts such as fatal flaws or duality of man. In film, she particularly enjoys magical realism/fantasy and cathartic comedy. Occasionally choosing to create a world full of magic and wonder or occasionally creating a project where the audience gets a cathartic release through the characters.
Work in Progress
Me and My Vegan Friend
For this project, I set out to tell a story through a non-traditional transmedia lens and utilise the social media platform. This tells the story of the tension between two friends who move in together and the challenges of living away from home with roommates. I wanted the audience to act like a third character in this story interacting with the characters. Ideally, this would be a live project that is constantly updating. It would have a full Instagram page and interact with other pages. The audience would also be able to interact with the characters.
Latte Art
This is a short film workplace comedy set in a cafe. It follows two employees, Emma and Alison, as they get a new manager. This manager is a micro-managing, controlling and rude manager. This short film follows Emma and Alison's first day of work with their new manager, Polly.
Talk About It
This series of photographs follows the theme of ‘Emotions and things you can’t quite explain’. I wanted to show what things like anxiety, depression, stress and other things look like to me. The idea of ‘sonder’ and feeling stuck has also always been an idea I’ve loved. Sonder is the sudden realisation that other people have a life as complex as your own. As a filmmaker and person who used TV to escape a lot, this idea of being the main character and having ‘background’ actors on their own show is very appealing to me.
Never Again
This is a poetry video I created based on the poem by Amanda Lovelace. This is a poem about the death of Lovelace's mum. Throughout the poem, she repeats the things she will never do again. When someone you love dies everything feels the same and repetitive. To emphasise these ideas I decided to make the film with many repetitive shots.
The Battle of the Kitchen
This was a comedy film I had created in lockdown about the repetitive nature of lockdown and finding things, such as food, to fill the day. I was commenting about how the days on in lockdown merge together and eating seems to be the only way to find something to do and get stimulation.
Terance Hore The Cyclist
This is a 60-second documentary I created of Terance Hore, a semi-professional cyclist. Although this is not the usual genre I work in, I did enjoy creating this film. I enjoyed the cutaway edits and finding clips of similar movements to create a cohesive look of the film and a transition between shots.