The Canopy

ALEXIS KANDRA, The Canopy, oil and metal foil on wood panel, 36" X 48", 2016

This painting features a family of macaws.  A scarlet macaw, a blue and gold macaw, and their hybrid offspring.  The snake is an emerald tree boa, strangely uninterested in the parrots.

As with other recent paintings, I have inverted the colors outside of the circular portal.  I imagine that when the creatures are in that inverted space, everything looks normal to them. 

To test that the inversion is working, I will periodically photograph the painting in progress and invert the image to check on it.  Here is an inverted image of the final painting.

Living Fossils

ALEXIS KANDRA, Living Fossils, oil and metal foil on wood panel, 36" X 48", 2016

This painting is inspired by ideas of life and extinction. It features a coelacanth fish, the classic idea of a creature once thought to be extinct millions of years ago, only be found alive and unchanged in the present. It also includes a Chinese white dolphin, a creature soon to be extinct as habitat destruction lowers its population. Both are living fossils in this painting.

The Dragoness and Her Mate

This is one of my most recent paintings. 

This painting is inspired by the Chinese symbols of the dragon and the phoenix. Together, these two celestial animals represent balance and harmony. As a couple, the male dragon and the female phoenix are an ideal balance of yang and yin. They are an auspicious pair, bringing prosperity, order, and good fortune.

For this painting, I imagined my own version of the dragon and the phoenix. I used the komodo dragon and the peacock, two very different animals but with some similarities in biology. I like to imagine what might hatch from their clutch of eggs.

ALEXIS KANDRA , The Dragoness and Her Mate , oil and metal foil on wood panel , 48" X 48" , 2016

http://kandra-art.com/Dragoness.htm