So what was the last thing you drew? A four-legged stick man? A love-heart set with your beloved’s initials? Maybe something on the back of a toilet door?
Compare all that to Alexandra Lekias’ intensely intricate illustrations and you may begin to see how much you have to learn. All of this Perth girl’s pieces take around FOUR HUNDRED hours each to produce. We shudder to think of the hand cramps and RSI she suffers from.
Whilst the level of detail leads to them looking almost digitalised on your computer monitor, Lekias’s pieces are all completely organic pieces of work that begin with watercolour musings. She then painstakingly fills in the blanks with pen, which – if you remember back your days of Primary School Pen License 101 – is an irreversible process. One false move and she must start all over again!
The result is delightfully delicious pieces which document coming of age and adolescent experiences: first kisses, shaving, awkward first boyfriends, smoking a ciggie for the first time and chucking up on your mother’s cashmere rug (or was that just us?). The result, as you’ll see from her
Lifelong Baby Teeth exhibition, is fairly delightful.
Ms Lekias is also quite the fashion icon back home in WA. She’s said before that her personal style is “puffy, furry, eclectic and dangly”, and she refuses to wear anything but puffy party dresses. She now owns 240 second hand dresses and one day hopes to have one for each day of the year.
Alexandra Lekias’
Lifelong Baby Teeth is opening at
Friends of Leon Gallery in Sydney tonight at 6pm.
More at
friendsofleon.com