Alexandra Motiu MSDC

Printmaking

About Alexandra
Alexandra Motiu is a printmaker and illustrator with a fine art background. She works with original printmaking techniques – mainly relief, linocut and wood engraving and has experience in etching, metal engraving & monotype. Her work has surreal qualities and humour, with an old masters' feel. She aims to make hauntingly beautiful work that will stay with the viewer for a long time. Enjoying busy compositions with complex stories which she builds up like a collage, her works are often rooted in myth and folklore.
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Biography Back to top

Alexandra creates detailed, decorative, and surreal prints that are entirely guided by the processes she works with, where mistakes are appreciated and oddities shine. She draws inspiration from people, specifically portraiture and it is from this sister art form that the stories encapsulated in her prints often develop.

Her recent work has concentrated on using traditional printmaking techniques as a means to uncover the hidden stories of the past: particularly in relation to labour, and labour rights. An understanding of printmaking as a practice of resistance - where slowness, care, and repetition are pivotal - has helped her connect deeply to its history as a trade and given her an insight into what work looked like in the past and what it may evolve into in the future.

Alexandra’s very personal creativity process allows her to directly connect to her work, its historical roots and techniques and, thereby, its finished form. She is passionate about embracing and preserving the knowledge of her craft/trade in its entire creative form, past and present.

Resumé Back to top

After completing a BA (Hons) Fine Art Critical Practice at Brighton, and an MA Illustration from Camberwell College, UAL, Alexandra's notable projects are illustrated stories from the Bishopsgate Archive, the illustrated poetry book Effigies by Ricardo Reveron Blanco, and a commission of exclusive prints for Fabrica Gallery in Brighton. Her work has been featured in international exhibitions over the past three years throughout Europe and the US, and is permanently at IO Gallery in Brighton & Greenwich Printmakers in London. She shares online the process of making original prints which she is passionate about preserving.

Education

  • 2022-2023, University of the Arts, London. MA Illustration, distinction
  • 2016-2019, Brighton University, BA (Hons) Fine Art Critical Practice
  • Matei Serban Sandu Apprenticeship: Introduced to various printmaking techniques by Romanian painter and printmaker Matei Serban Sandu.

Exhibitions

2025

  • 14 – 15 May Print Fair, Winchester
  • Prints for Presents exhibition, Greenwich Printmakers Gallery
  • Winter Exhibition, Art Gallery by Aga Kubish, Weston-Super-Mare

2024

  • Mini Prints Exhibition, Southbank Printmakers, London
  • Atelier Open Group Show, Atelier Beside the Sea, Brighton

2023

  • Industry Book Fair, Millbank Tower, London
  • Group show, Camberwell College, London

2022

  • Assemblage Christmas Show, Assemblage Art & Design Institute, Bucharest
  • Press & Play Print Festival, Phoenix Gallery, Brighton
  • Book launch/solo show, Fabrica Gallery, Brighton
  • Group show, Surface Impressions, Lux Centre for Cont Arts, USA
  • Group Show, Derby Print Open, Green Mill Studios, Derby

2021

  • Group Show, Sibiu Contemporary, Brukenthal Sibiu
  • Group show, Awagami, Yoshin Ogawa, Japan
  • Group show, Romanian Design Week, Bucharest
  • Virtual Group show, Holy Art Gallery, London

Permanent gallery representation

  • Io Gallery, Brighton and Greenwich Printmakers, London

Publications as author

Blogs/website publications

  • Ironbridge Printmakers blog feature – 2022
  • Handprinted UK Meet the Maker feature article - August 2021

Awards and shortlists

  • QEST Scholarship - shortlisted

Magazine features

  • Pressing Matters, July 2021
  • Group feature for a challenge call out




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