About Alexandra Rojas
Alexandra Rojas was born in Bogota, Colombia in 1977. From the very beginning, most like everyone else, she’s been drawing since she could hold something in her hand for more than a second without throwing it. But unlike most, that same curious and creative spirit a child has when drawing, Rojas still has it in her decades later. In some ways, you could say she’s still doing the same thing as a toddler: being playful with art.
Colombia was the place that molded who she is today as an artist. Her family was highly encouraging of this brewing passion - taking her to art museums and surrouding her with creatives. Both of her maternal grantparents were opera singers and a few of her uncles were professional Salsa musicians. Safe to say, she was in a very creative household - one that primed her for a creative life to come. One of her earliest art “teachers” was Marta Traba, a critic and television personality who educated audiences about art who would leave a great impact on the discourse surrounding contemporary art in Colombia. As a child, Rojas’ sensibilities were also shaped by the political unrest in Bogota and her, her brother, and her mother’s immigration to the United States in the mid-80s. An overwhelming sense of loss that came with leaving the rest of her extended family behind left impression of pain. Ever since, she’s been culturally and socially-minded; topics that imform much of her work.
Soon came a new love - a love for New York City immediately after landing here. A few vital relationships were made as she began her new life in suburban New Jersey. One in particular was Betty and Frank Scott’s. Frank was a behind-the-scenes star in the world of baseball. Much of Rojas’ early American culture knowledge came from him as photos of politicans, celebrities, and baseball players hung proudly on the walls of their home. Scott would give them tickets to games at Yankee Stadium and treated her as a granddaughter. Looking back, she realizes the positive encouragements Frank and Betty gave her fueled her and her love of the city grew stronger which each passing game she attended to as she learned to navigate the public transit system. More than just traveling for baseball games, she began skipping school, testing her transit system knowledge, and went to art museums just as she did in Colombia. Museums gave her the power of knowledge, developed her artistic pallet, cemented the idea that art was her passion.
As a young adult, Rojas did her fair share of odd jobs to make a living as she engulfed herself in creating. She was indifferent to making a name for herself (and simply, too busy with her side hustles), never thought about giving up (sometimes, she just thought it was the name of the game), and she just kept creating art no matter what, but Rojas soon began incorporating herself in the artist community by simply making friends and she surrounded herself around artists by volunteering in and creating spaces for what she was passionate about. Rojas finally fuilled a dream in 1998 by moving to Astoria, Queens and her career in the city began to blossom.
Her work can be found in The Library of Congress, Rare Books (Washington, D.C), Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY), and Fales Library, New York University (New York, NY). She’s been a guest speaker at various events, including; the Parsons School of Design (New York, NY) and the Musashino Art University (Tokyo, Japan). Among many other places, Rojas is proud to have had her work exhibited at the BMW Guggenheim Lab (New York, NY). In addition to these achievements, she is a co-director of Bullet Space (New York, NY) and an urban artist collaborative collective.
What’s more, you ask? Rojas is characterized as a multimedia artist, whose work has been shown and covered by a wide variety of venues and publications domestically and internationally. Her work has been reviewed in Saatchi & Saatchi Magazine, Vice, M Magazine, and Brooklyn Rail. Additionally, Rojas’ work has been included in multiple exhibitions and shows, including the following: The American Dream: The Latino Experience in America, curated by Dora Espinoza, at Belskie Museum of Art & Science INC (Closter, NJ), KinoSaito (Verplanck, NY) in August 2021, where she was an artist in residence for six weeks, culminating in an exhibition of all works made on the premises during the time period, the Robeson Gallery (Peekskill, NY) in the summer of 2022, along with Pablo Alberro, her work was featured at as part of an exhibit of emerging and established artists’ work, and most recently, as part of the ongoing multi-year touring exhibition, “The World Is A Hankercheif,” by Claudia DeMonte and Cecilia Mandrile at the Coral Gables Museum (Coral Gables, FL), the Centre For Print Research (Bristol, UK), and the London Print Studio Gallery (London, UK). In 2023, Rojas’ show Not That Way was featured in Noah Becker’s WhiteHot Magazine of Contemporary Art.
Rojas currently lives and works in the Lower East Side.
Alexandra Rojas was born in Bogota, Colombia in 1977. From the very beginning, most like everyone else, she’s been drawing since she could hold something in her hand for more than a second without throwing it. But unlike most, that same curious and creative spirit a child has when drawing, Rojas still has it in her decades later. In some ways, you could say she’s still doing the same thing as a toddler: being playful with art.
Colombia was the place that molded who she is today as an artist. Her family was highly encouraging of this brewing passion - taking her to art museums and surrouding her with creatives. Both of her maternal grantparents were opera singers and a few of her uncles were professional Salsa musicians. Safe to say, she was in a very creative household - one that primed her for a creative life to come. One of her earliest art “teachers” was Marta Traba, a critic and television personality who educated audiences about art who would leave a great impact on the discourse surrounding contemporary art in Colombia. As a child, Rojas’ sensibilities were also shaped by the political unrest in Bogota and her, her brother, and her mother’s immigration to the United States in the mid-80s. An overwhelming sense of loss that came with leaving the rest of her extended family behind left impression of pain. Ever since, she’s been culturally and socially-minded; topics that imform much of her work.
Soon came a new love - a love for New York City immediately after landing here. A few vital relationships were made as she began her new life in suburban New Jersey. One in particular was Betty and Frank Scott’s. Frank was a behind-the-scenes star in the world of baseball. Much of Rojas’ early American culture knowledge came from him as photos of politicans, celebrities, and baseball players hung proudly on the walls of their home. Scott would give them tickets to games at Yankee Stadium and treated her as a granddaughter. Looking back, she realizes the positive encouragements Frank and Betty gave her fueled her and her love of the city grew stronger which each passing game she attended to as she learned to navigate the public transit system. More than just traveling for baseball games, she began skipping school, testing her transit system knowledge, and went to art museums just as she did in Colombia. Museums gave her the power of knowledge, developed her artistic pallet, cemented the idea that art was her passion.
As a young adult, Rojas did her fair share of odd jobs to make a living as she engulfed herself in creating. She was indifferent to making a name for herself (and simply, too busy with her side hustles), never thought about giving up (sometimes, she just thought it was the name of the game), and she just kept creating art no matter what, but Rojas soon began incorporating herself in the artist community by simply making friends and she surrounded herself around artists by volunteering in and creating spaces for what she was passionate about. Rojas finally fuilled a dream in 1998 by moving to Astoria, Queens and her career in the city began to blossom.
Her work can be found in The Library of Congress, Rare Books (Washington, D.C), Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY), and Fales Library, New York University (New York, NY). She’s been a guest speaker at various events, including; the Parsons School of Design (New York, NY) and the Musashino Art University (Tokyo, Japan). Among many other places, Rojas is proud to have had her work exhibited at the BMW Guggenheim Lab (New York, NY). In addition to these achievements, she is a co-director of Bullet Space (New York, NY) and an urban artist collaborative collective.
What’s more, you ask? Rojas is characterized as a multimedia artist, whose work has been shown and covered by a wide variety of venues and publications domestically and internationally. Her work has been reviewed in Saatchi & Saatchi Magazine, Vice, M Magazine, and Brooklyn Rail. Additionally, Rojas’ work has been included in multiple exhibitions and shows, including the following: The American Dream: The Latino Experience in America, curated by Dora Espinoza, at Belskie Museum of Art & Science INC (Closter, NJ), KinoSaito (Verplanck, NY) in August 2021, where she was an artist in residence for six weeks, culminating in an exhibition of all works made on the premises during the time period, the Robeson Gallery (Peekskill, NY) in the summer of 2022, along with Pablo Alberro, her work was featured at as part of an exhibit of emerging and established artists’ work, and most recently, as part of the ongoing multi-year touring exhibition, “The World Is A Hankercheif,” by Claudia DeMonte and Cecilia Mandrile at the Coral Gables Museum (Coral Gables, FL), the Centre For Print Research (Bristol, UK), and the London Print Studio Gallery (London, UK). In 2023, Rojas’ show Not That Way was featured in Noah Becker’s WhiteHot Magazine of Contemporary Art.
Rojas currently lives and works in the Lower East Side.
- Ramiro Alejandro Restrepo