AESPYNE ALIX

Aespyne Alix is a Tulsa, Oklahoma born contemporary artist based in Chicago. As a child Alix was deeply shaped by her parents’ friendship with the late American Abstract painter, Norman Lewis’ wife, Ouida. Aespyne spent her summers admiring the artist’s old sketchbooks and abstract paintings hanging up in his wifes Oklahoma residence. This profoundly influenced Aespyne’s love of art at an early age and also provided a source of comfort for anxiety. “Each color has a feeling to me, and when I can create a feeling on canvas it eases that feeling in the physical and emotional sense for me. I’m calm.” Creating art to relax the mind.

Alix has held exhibitions and artists salons focused on mental health advocacy and awareness in communities of color. She has worked in collaboration with Lucy Ford and other artists in exhibitions at SXSW and Art Basel. Aespyne has been featured in the Bougie Art Gallery’s Abstract Art Now magazine which featured current and up and coming abstract artists. Aespyne has also been a guest speaker at Indiana University South Bend and Her Art, a night dedicated to women of color in the city of South Bend Indiana. Alix also spent time in Barcelona Spain under the RARO residency and exhibited internationally at Exposicion Colectiva in 2021. Upon returning to the states, Alix exhibited her second showing in downtown Chicago, BLVK February 2022 on Michigan Avenue. Her 2022 collection, The Color Healing, features portraits of community members affected by trauma during the pandemic and their personal journey to healing using multimedia and journaling interviews. Alix has held Open Studios at the Arts Letters and Numbers Residency in Albany, New York during the summer of 2023. In May 2024 Alix collaborated with Ensemble in Process: Ensemble in Visual Motion at Epiphany Arts to showcase musical works around her painting “Red Summer”. Aespyne will go on to complete her fifth residency in France at the Chateau Orquevaux this July. Alix continues to build her community by teaching 11th and 12th grade Art on the North side of Chicago teaching young adults from all 47 districts offering traditional drawing and fashion design. As a teacher Alix creates and implements art curriculum that reaches both academic and social emotional needs to underserved communities.

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