SEPTEMBER 7, 2019 3
By Chris Triunfo
GLOBE CORRESPONDENT
Alexandra Hochberg (@al-
exandrahawk) has been eager
togetbackintoherstudio(and
apartment) in Jamaica Plain
after a fire forced her out
months ago. Now, as she’s
gearing up to return, Hoch-
berg is reflecting on the past
few months, and all the work
to come. Hochberg, who has
been in Boston for over eight
years, was born in Baltimore
and grew up in New Hamp-
shire, so she’s accustomed to
change. Her art reflects that,
as she’s constantly experiment-
ing with the methods and ma-
terials.
Q.Your approach to portrai-
ture blends elements of point-
illism and layering. How did
you settle on this stylistic ap-
proach?
A.The journey I’ve gone
through with painting is a fun-
ny one. Part of the reason is be-
cause I love to experiment with
different mediums. I always
have. I just love to see the dif-
ferent ways things can be ma-
nipulated to fit a specific im-
age. I started painting with
acrylic, which I now can’t
stand. I moved on to oil in col-
lege, and that was where I
started getting a little bit more
expressive. The blending, dry-
ing, and layering I could ac-
complish using oil was enough
to allow me to drop acrylic. On
the other hand, I’ve always
liked portraiture, I have this
kind of OCD mentality when it
comes to attention to detail.
That is what I really enjoy fo-
cusing on in my work. Every
individual I paint is different.
So it’s the detail that makes ev-
ery person recognizable aswho they are. While I was in
college I was introduced to
gouache, a very flat graphic
medium. I love how you can
layer it and contour it and play
with its opacity. A while back, I
messed up a portrait — or I
thought I messed up a portrait
— I was trying to blend, but I
discovered this particular style
of forming lines that I fell in
love with. Then I kind of just
ran with it. I thought I had
made a mistake, and sure
enough now that’s my style.Q.Apart from portraiture, you
also paint a lot of landscapes
and architectural pieces. How
do you approach each differ-
ently?
A.Just like my approach to
portraiture, landscapes and
buildings boil down to a metic-
ulous attention to detail. I’d
say that my landscapes, whichare usually done in oil, are
more realistic than my por-
traits, which are done with
gouache. I use oil, and I use
smaller brushes for landscapes
and architecture because I
want someone who looks at my
painting to see the small parts
of a place. The corners and
crevices, the spots and stains.
With portraiture, and gouache,
I want to exaggerate the details
of a person’s face using lines
and using points so I can make
unique features become more
apparent. Maybe someone’s
eyes are very unique, so I’d
draw attention to them with
the way I structure the lines of
their face. Both methods focus
on detail, but in very different
ways.Chris Triunfo can be reached
at christian.triunfo
@globe.com.MY INSTAGRAM
Alexandra Hochberg
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