Alexandra Phillips (Port Chester NY, 1988) is an American artist currently working in Rotterdam. I first became acquainted with her work in 2016 when she stayed at Jan Henderikse's studio at Antwerp's Hessenhuis. From the first encounter, I experience her art practice as an ongoing investigation with the core question: "What is value?"

Through her work, Alexandra Phillips comments on our fleeting and insatiable existence with a light touch and a witty sense of humour. She has a great alertness to abandoned objects and discarded materials. Thus, she works with anything that crosses her path: polystyrene, plastic, cardboard, cups, packaging, the heel of a shoe or old ceramic tiles. She finds them, selects them and incorporates them into sculptures, assemblages and wall objects. In doing so, she uses plaster, tape, paper and glue as connecting materials, among others. Only after these parts are brought together in their final form do we see a glimpse of her selection method and discover that they have an emotional or almost poetic charge. For the viewer, these everyday materials suddenly reveal a new potential previously invisible.

Alexandra and I have been working together regularly since 2016 but the exhibition 'Every little soul must shine' is her first solo project at the gallery. In doing so, we will show an idiosyncratic selection with work created over all these years in her various studios. In addition, the kinetic installation 'A Habit is Also a Legend' will also be on show in the SD Worx building near the gallery, and I will bring her work to Art On Paper Amsterdam.

Stijn Coppejans, Antwerp

Artists: Alexandra Phillips