My name is Alexandra Bowers, and I am born and raised in the Sonoran Desert. Choosing to live in the desert, I’ve learned it’s easy to disassociate with what exists naturally just beyond our backyards and workspaces. Technology, cars, and man-made structures all help to detach us, physically and psychologically, from our arid surroundings. My work features plants and animals that live within my neighborhood and just beyond the urban streets, that survive in an extremely harsh climate while simultaneously adapting to human encroachment. Utilizing the wood burning process, known as pyrography, allows me to illustrate with heat, these specimens. Urban sprawl has forced the habitat to either vanish or move away. As we pave, develop, and grow our urban cities, the natural environment diminishes and is forced to change and adapt to its human neighbors. My work is concerned with highlighting these beings, to bring our awareness back to them before they move on, or permanently disappear.

​

Alexandra Bowers is a Phoenix based artist who received her BFA in 2012 from Arizona State University. Inspired by the natural surrounding environment, Bowers utilizes data collected while exploring to produce wood burned and mixed media studies of plants and animals she finds along the way. Bowers has had the privilege of showcasing her work across Arizona, and outside of the state, most notably at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. She was a finalist for the “Good N’ Plenty” artist award granted by the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art. Bowers’ work was showcased in Sky Harbor International Airport’s Museum Gallery. She was also one of three chosen for the “Summer Artist Residence Program: Biomimicry Challenge” at the Tempe Center for the Arts. In 2018 Contemporary Forum auctioned off Bowers’ work to help raise funds for the Phoenix Art Museum’s contemporary art collection. Last year her work was chosen for the Tempe Municipal Court as part of the Tempe Public Arts program. It has since been purchased to stay in the Tempe Portable Works permanent art collection. She most recently debuted her solo installation “A Murmuration of Found Feathers in Flight” at the Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum. During lockdown, Bowers asked the community to send her photos of found feathers. She ended up recreating over 800 mixed media pieces for the installation. As Bowers continues on her journey as an emerging artist, she is continuously looking for opportunities within the arts community, including exhibiting both nationally and internationally.