Welcome to Julie Baker Fine Art

Alexandra Eldridge: Tell Me Something Astinishing
Opens Friday, July 21, 6 – 9pm
Art Talk Saturday, July 22, 10am
July 21, 2006 – August 27, 2006
Open Monday - Saturday 10am – 6pm, Sunday 11am – 5pm

>> preview the art of Alexandra Eldridge

Alexandra Eldridge, 2006

"There are two tides, one of light and another of muffling, suffocating...absence. Alexandra is clearly in the light." - William Hurt

Tell Me Something Astonishing is an apt title for Alexandra Eldridge's third solo show at Julie Baker Fine Art. The highly sought paintings of the Santa Fe artist have never failed to astonish, delight, and deeply move her appreciators. And what Eldridge “tells” her viewers - via pigmented Venetian plaster, renderings, symbols, incised words, phrases, poetry, collage, and organic material - are visual stories plumbed from the artist's journeys.

In Tell Me Something Astonishing one witnesses a materialization of Eldridge's solstitial ponderings. Images of bare trees with leaves softly meandering toward the heavens are hemmed by fences - symbols of containment within unknown realms - and tell of the artist's quest amid great mysteriousness. "Alexandra Eldridge's work is a study in the balance of soulful abandon and the gravity inherent in the materiality of the passage of life time…the resultant image hovering between heaven and earth," artist Adam Fuss describes.

Other paintings reveal the gentle influence of a literal journey. Eldridge's springtime visit to Abiquiu, New Mexico, to an area famous for the artist who loved and lived its land, Georgia O'Keefe, proved to be a point of transition in this latest group of paintings. Eldridge was urged to take home a simple token of her trip - the deep red, pale green, and ochre earth from the nearby mountains. Once she used this earth to pigment the plaster, a fresh vocabulary began to flow. These images - a white bowl with a tiny butterfly, a hammock strung between two trees, or a pale pink cake on a light green background - whisper a tenderness, lightness, and intimacy that is rarely spoken.

Gallery Installation, Alexandra Eldridge, 2006

Alexandra Eldridge was born in Mountainside, New Jersey to artist parents. After studying art at Ohio University, she settled into a community founded on the teachings of William Blake. Eldridge later moved to Santa Fe to raise her children and pursue her art with studies at the Santa Fe Institute of Fine Art, as well as workshops and apprenticeships in Florence, Cambridge, and New York. Eldridge continues to reside in Santa Fe.

Eldridge's work is continually watched and reviewed in publications such as Art News, The Albuquerque Tribune, and THE Magazine. Her growing collector base includes notables such as Edie Falco, Steve Buscemi, and William Hurt.
In addition to Julie Baker Fine Art, Eldridge exhibits with George Billis in Los Angeles, Turner Carroll Gallery in Santa Fe and Weber Fine Art in New York.

Tell Me Something Astonishing programming will include a public art talk given by Alexandra Eldridge on Saturday, July 22 at 10 am. The artist will speak about the paintings in this show and will answer questions about her artwork. The art talk will be held at Julie Baker Fine Art. Admission is $5.00. As seating is limited, the public is encouraged to RSVP by calling the gallery at 530.265.9ART