Alexandra Heason is a portrait painter who explores the tortured, suppressed and oppressed state of the female mind.
A restrained figure emerges from the gloom and shadow on a distressed, tormented surface. There is a haunted, yet brutish and animalistic echo to the work; as if the female is a caged, trapped animal:
“Whether beast or human being, one could not, at first sight tell”
Charlotte Bronte - Jane Eyre - 1846
Oil paint is applied and simultaneously stripped back upon this surface
to show the degradation and frailty of her mental state. However, through the initial harshness of the board there is a whisper of the person she once was:
Demur – fragile -  human.
“They can be recognized. White faces, dazed eyes, aimless gestures, high-pitched laughter … She is only a memory to be avoided, locked away, and like all memories a legend. Or a lie”
Jean Rhys - Wide Sargasso Sea - 1966