Lexi Dooley

My work is largely informed by fading colors, wilting textures and the beauty in fugitive materials. I cherish in the impermanence of my art, and just as time progresses so do my individual collages made with found ephemera. As the years pass, the paper will begin to yellow, the packaging material will fall and the glue will begin to lift. My artwork is alive and represents a time and place that evokes dormant memories waiting to be awakened.

As an adult I have reinterpreted childhood imagery revealing the double entendre of charming characters and provocative archetypes. Suddenly an image of a teddy bear is less endearing, while the game of “peek-a-boo” takes on a nightmare-like twist. The loss of childhood innocence is inevitable, and the idealized vision of a nighttime teddy bear takes on a ghoulish representation.

Using torn pages and reconstructions of books and fairytale stories emphasizes my reinterpretation of childhood images. Fairytales infuse one with complex layers of morality and behavior that is not always black and white. My work is an attempt to occupy the viewers mind in a similar way that a fairytale story does.

Furthermore, books are not meant to be read like billowing petals, nor are they to be torn in an illegible tangle. Yet the intuitive shapes and textures that these techniques create brings one back to a child’s innate ability to create. So often do people lose this innate ability, yet the artist creates with insurmountable intuition. Therefore my artwork represents both a departure from childhood ideals and a return to innate creation.