Alix Ankele – Artist’s Bio/Statement
Born in Ely, Minnesota in 1942 and growing up in Washington, D.C., I earned a B.A. from Denison University in 1964 and an MSW from Adelphi University School of Social Work in 1967. My artistic life began in East Africa where I lived with my husband and two young children from 1974 to 1979. I began making painterly batiks, exhibiting and selling at the Kenya Arts Society and at the African Heritage Gallery in Nairobi, Kenya. Upon returning to live in New York City, I availed myself of the rich art scene, taking classes at Parsons, New School and the Art Students League. I became interested in figure and portrait painting, and working in oil, I took workshops and studio classes with Gary Faigan, Frederick Franck and Bert Silverman. I studied Chinese watercolor with Master Zhang Shou-Cheng.
After moving my studio from 125th St. to the Hudson Valley about 10 years ago, I began a new phase, experimenting with color and form, doing abstract oil work. Inspired by my Tibetan/Zen meditation practice of some 30 years, and influenced by the painters of the New York School, I enjoy working in a spontaneous, intuitive, process oriented way. Zen Master Sueng Sahn Sunim referred to this open-minded moment to moment approach as “don’t know mind,” pointing to a spacious, receptive, flexible state of mind, free of rules, judgments and preconceptions – as opposed to the closed and uptight state of our “know it all mind” clinging to its fond opinions and many notions of how things should or ought to be. So, free of a defined goal and the need to “get it right”, my intuitive aesthetic sense is given full play to improvise with the changing conditions of the moment where the placement of one color suggests a response and a chance slip of the hand might open up a whole new direction. It is only when I step away from the finished piece that I get a sense of some inchoate urge having been realized. It’s often at that point a title pops into mind. In my journey as an artist, this discovery of abstract expressionism, informed by my study and practice of Buddhist meditation has led me to a process that feels very much like “coming home.”
My paintings have been exhibited in New York City and the Hudson Valley and are in private collections from Arizona to Boston and the Virgin Islands.