Exploring the intersecting notions of feminism, sexuality, and identity, Alexandra Gallagher (b. 1980, Greater Manchester) is a British multidisciplinary artist whose practice navigates the boundaries between painting, collage, street art, printmaking, and mixed media. Her work operates at the confluence of Surrealism and contemporary feminist discourse, interrogating visual and cultural constructions of femininity through a complex synthesis of symbolic imagery and psychological narrative.

​

Gallagher draws extensively upon the formal and conceptual language of Surrealism, reinterpreting its early twentieth-century aims for a contemporary feminist context. As the Tate notes, Surrealism sought to “revolutionise human experience… balancing a rational vision of life with one that asserts the power of the unconscious and dreams.”¹ Gallagher extends this revolutionary impulse, mobilising the surreal as a means of examining both the visible and the unconscious mechanisms through which gender, beauty, and power are encoded within visual culture. Her works often find “magic and strange beauty in the unexpected and the uncanny,” employing these characteristics to destabilise conventional representations of women.

​

Having initially trained as a portrait artist, Gallagher became disillusioned with the constraints of traditional representation. This disaffection prompted a shift toward a more experimental and interdisciplinary practice that incorporated photography, digital collage, and painting. Through this transition, Gallagher began to articulate deeply personal yet socio-culturally resonant narratives, tracing a trajectory from the isolation of childhood to the self-awareness of adulthood, and ultimately to a broader interrogation of womanhood within both Western society and global frameworks of patriarchy.

​

Collage functions as a central methodology within her practice. Replacing the conventional act of sketching on paper, Gallagher constructs digital collages as compositional studies, layering imagery and texture to form dreamlike yet highly structured compositions. This approach foregrounds the act of fragmentation and reconstruction, a metaphor for the formation of identity itself. Through this process, Gallagher engages her audience on both emotional and intellectual levels, inviting reflection upon the interplay between aesthetic pleasure and ideological critique.

​

Her visual narratives are informed by enduring interests in History, Politics, Sociology, and Theology, which manifest in her use of symbolism and allegory. Gallagher’s iconography frequently references mythological and religious frameworks, allowing her to explore how these systems perpetuate or challenge the representation of women. By reclaiming and reconfiguring such symbols, her practice seeks to transform negative or oppressive cultural residues into affirmations of agency and resilience.

​

In addition to her fine art practice, Gallagher’s oeuvre extends across diverse creative industries, including fashion, interior design, sculpture, branding, and publishing. Her work has been exhibited and collected nationally and internationally and has earned critical recognition through numerous awards and nominations: shortlisted for the Zealous X; runner-up for the Secret Art Prize (2016); second place in the Saatchi Showdown Surrealism category; finalist for the London Contemporary Art Prize (2018); and shortlisted for the Rise Art Prize. Her professional collaborations include major projects with COAST Fashion, Crown Paint, Grand Designs, Symphony of the Sea, and Cushman & Wakefield.³

​

Through her distinctive visual language, Gallagher reclaims the surreal as a feminist strategy, a means to subvert inherited iconographies of beauty and power, and to imagine new, liberated forms of the feminine. Her work thus occupies a critical position within contemporary art’s ongoing re-engagement with Surrealism, situating the female subject not as muse or myth, but as author and agent of her own narrative.

​

References

1. Tate (n.d.) Surrealism, Tate. Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/s/surrealism#:~:text=Surrealism%20aims%20to%20revolutionise%20human,the%20disregarded%20and%20the%20unconventional. (Accessed: 12 October 2023).

2. Rise Art (2021) A Guide to the Feminist Art Movement, Rise Art. Available at: https://www.riseart.com/guide/2418/guide-to-the-feminist-art-movement (Accessed: 12 October 2023).

3. About Alexandra Gallagher (n.d.) Available at: https://www.alexandragallagherart.com/about-alexandra-gallagher (Accessed: 12 October 2023).