Alecia Healee is a sensitive and imaginative artist, who captures the spirit of her subject through the use of different medium's such as painting and photography.
BIOGRAPHY
B. 1982. Christchurch. New Zealand.
Alecia grew up in rural North Canterbury, with family in abundance and strong moral/hard working ideals instilled in her from a very young age. She attended the local area school until the age of 17 when she left this quiet country back drop for the noise and pace of the big smoke (Christchurch), where she discovered the Design & Arts College of New Zealand and a burgeoning career in Photography.
Alecia’s interest in pattern making, clothing and the art of tattooing lead her to enrol in the 3year Diploma of Fine Arts in 2000. She identified an early strength in Photography and pursued this passion through further education with Whitecliffe College of Arts and Design in Auckland where she gained her Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in 2003.
Alecia has retained her strong link with the community in which she was raised and applied her new found awareness to projects that directly related back to this community. In 2004, Alecia was accepted into CoCA’s Emerging Artist Programme, where she exhibited large photographic works that blurred the viewers’ perspective and perception of the kiwi vernacular. Blue Skies: Family Ties was a resounding success for both emerging artists and photography as she brought her medium to the forefront of the contemporary art world, and inspired others to follow in her foot steps.
Later in the same year, My Playground was My Imagination opened at the Chamber Art Gallery in Rangiora. A celebration of innocence and childhood memories, this exhibition portrayed the absence of the body by the revisiting of her past through dreams, memories and locations as an unsettling awareness by the viewer that memory is negotiable.
After a teaching stint at the Design & Arts College of New Zealand (2004/2005) and involving herself in Canterbury Art on Tour (2005/2006), the CoCA Anthony Harper Awards (2005/2006/2007) where she was a finalist; Alecia has also found time to continue her practise, set-up a small art business as well as developing an art space, The Long Hall at Karadean Court in Oxford, which she is curator of. As she continues to involve herself in future projects with the community that holds such close connections and inspiration to herself and her art-making practise.
I enjoy taking photographs of my family, friends, animals and scenery. I also keep myself busy by creating abstract paintings and mosaic furniture.
