Artworks

Alex Beattie ARE Elected ARE 2023

We Carry Treasure

silkscreen print, edition of 40

image size 27 x 36cm

paper size 30 x 42cm

£160 unframed

The donkey nervously shifts its weight on the carpet of flowers, unaware that it carries the shrine of a prophet on its back. We Carry Treasure is meant as a gentle reminder of the power and wisdom we hold. We travel through life from birth to dust, and along the way we leave echoes of our dreams and identity – some that bear fruit and some that don’t. But we carry beauty in us, and we are not wasted. The journey is always worthwhile.

Alex’s print works draw the viewer into celestial dreamscapes of colour, symbolism and the supernatural. They take joyful inspiration from everything and anything; Byzantine mosaic to socialist poster art, Hokusai to videogames.

This print is produced as a seven-layer hand-pulled silkscreen print, where successive layers of transparent pigment are overlaid precisely to build up the image, producing a whole spectrum of dense, vibrant colours. Each of his works is entirely hand-drawn. He collages individual elements together, to create a final image with a bold, graphic unity. He then works back from that to the colour separations, ready for printing. 

Alex is an artist and printmaker, working in London. He studied Textile Design at Chelsea, UAL and since then his creative practice has expanded across paper and fabric, mosaic and digital.

He exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 2021 and was included in Grayson Perry’s selection of prints at the RA Summer Show in 2022. Alex’s most recent solo show was Impossible Beauty, at The Bomb Factory Art Foundation, Covent Garden in January 2024.