Alaska Moirai is a San Francisco native whose artistic journey commenced at the Ruth Asawa School of the Arts in the Twin Peaks district of the city. Her art education and training continued at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, one of the last ateliers in America that emphasizes a more traditional approach to classical drawing, oil painting, sculpture, and printmaking.
Today, her artistic practice explores the intersection between spirituality and psychology, an interplay she terms as “cerebralism” — a grounded approach to surrealism that is more rooted in reality. Rather than depicting dream descriptions, this version of surrealism delineates the elusiveness of memory and meaning. In particular, Alaska is interested in understanding the often karmic nature of lingering memories and how they can shape-shift over time, becoming something unfamiliar and intangible, yet remain intimately known. Her aim is to transmute these cerebral densities into something more lucid and, in turn, cathartic.
Alaska methodically employs realism to underscore that her pieces are a commentary on reality. However, she regularly diverges from that realism, allowing elements of a subject or background to warp and metamorphose. This mix of semi-realism and semi-abstraction mirrors the way she views our current existence; where aspects of our world that feel real co-inhabit with aspects that do not; and where the logical and illogical subsist together. Ultimately, Alaska’s paintings leave a lingering sense that there could be something more complex to her subjects than we initially see, imprinting a subtle sense of mystery or obscurity, amplified by her signature dark atmosphere.
Instagram: @sappho.isms
