Alexandra Baker
- Anna Lilli Garai
- Aug 12
- 3 min read
Alexandra Baker is a Memphis-based abstract painter whose work centers on healing through color. Her process is emotional and intuitive, often shaped by music, prayer, and local elements like river water from the Memphis aquifer. She works with bold colors and layered textures to process personal experiences and create space for others to reflect and heal. Influenced by the spirit of her city and its deep musical traditions, her paintings carry energy, resilience, and a strong sense of place. For Baker, making art is both a spiritual practice and a way to connect with others through feeling and presence.
Q: You describe painting as a way to process life’s traumas. When did you first realize that art could be a healing tool for you?
A: I first realized art’s healing powers when I painted my first painting in 2018. I had tried many healing modalities at that point, but nothing unburdened and inspired me like painting. Feeling my paintbrush glide across the canvas allowed me to breathe fully for the first time in my life, it seemed.
Q: Color and texture are central to your work. How do you decide which materials or combinations to use when starting a new piece?
A: My process is very intuitive, and I choose colors and materials based on my feelings and emotions at the time I’m approaching the canvas.
Q: Memphis clearly plays a big role in your creative process. What does the city’s energy bring to your work?
A: Memphis is the city that raised me. The Blues is central to Memphis’ history and culture—the Blues is all about turning your pain into beauty, releasing and alchemizing what burdens you. I learned as a young child the importance of channeling your pain into something creative. If you keep things inside, it can make you sick. The Creator gives us channels and pathways to give our pain to God, Spirit, the Universe. Memphis is in the Bible Belt of the country (and my grandparents were preachers); I think these things greatly inform my spiritual identity and my paintings.
Creating art is central to my personal spiritual practice. My city showed me how to put one foot in front of the other no matter your struggle. That healing power and resilience that was modeled for me jumps off my canvas.
Q: Some of your paintings, like "Pick Up Your Feelings and Ancestors’ Song", are directly tied to music and poetry. How do sound and language influence your visual choices?
A: I love to listen to music while I paint, and good poetry always moves my emotions. Because I am painting what I feel, any and all things that affect my emotional state will show up in the paint, be it a type of stroke or a range of colors I’m using.
Q: You’ve spoken about using river or aquifer water in your work. Can you talk more about how that connects to your ideas around healing and place?
A: I feel we as a people must connect to the land for healing, as we are a part of Nature, not separate from it. Using waters specifically tied to Memphis, such as from the Wolf River, seems to connect me more deeply with those healing waters, with which I am eternally in love. Love is the greatest healing power we have!
Q: As a proud 2SLGBTQ+ artist, does visibility and representation shape the way you think about your role as an artist today?
A: I absolutely feel visibility and representation are so important, especially for the youth. I would love for blooming, young, 2SLGBTQIA+ artists to see me and others and be able to imagine a successful future where they too can be out and proud creatives. Because I am a feminine-presenting lesbian, I have to be more vocal about my gay identity, as people sometimes don’t realize that I’m gay just from looking at me. I pray to be a good representation of my community and our collective Healing Thru Color.
