Description

Dog

By Marc Alexander from his ‘Touch’ exhibition. ‘Dog’, Archival Paper Print, 300g Hahnemuhle Paper, 6cm by 8.5cm. Unframed.

Dog

These little Chihuahuas may be mini in size but they are massive in personality! This little darlings weighs less than 1kg and can be scooped up with just one hand. Affectionate and playful, lapdogs make excellent friends.
The Chihuahua’s history is convoluted, and many theories surround the origin of the breed. Both folklore and archaeological finds show that the breed has origins in Mexico. The most common theory is that the Chihuahua is descended from the Techichi, a companion dog favoured by the Toltec civilization in Mexico. No records of the Techichi are available before the 9th century, although dog pots from Colima, Mexico, buried as part of the western Mexico shaft tomb tradition, which dates back to 300 BC, are thought to depict Techichis. The earlier ancestors probably were present before the Mayas as dogs approximating the Chihuahua are found in materials from the Great Pyramid of Cholula, antedating 1530 and in the ruins of Chichen Itza on the Yucatán Peninsula. However, a genetic study indicated that there was less than 2 per cent pre-European mitochondrial DNA in modern Chihuahuas due to admixture with the European dogs.

Touch Series

After a long season of producing portraits in oils, I returned for a while to the humble pencil. The ‘Touch’ exhibition, which opened at the Studio Gallery Kalk Bay on Friday June 14^th 2013 and ran until July 3^rd, was the result of that experience – a true celebration of the beauty and expressiveness of the human hand.

Several months before this show, a group of us artists got together in the studio to work on life drawings, and for me, hands are one of the most difficult parts of the human body to draw, so I decided to master this challenge by producing one hundred detailed drawings. Friends, family and even casual acquaintances, modeled their hands for me and in each drawing I tried to capture the unique character of each individual.

A great deal could be learned about a person just by observing their hands. For example, the slight hand gestures of a person in love, or the anxious mannerisms of the addicted smoker clutching his last cigarette, or the telltale scars and callouses which belong to a hard working laborer. The hands are young and old, lined and smooth and endlessly expressive and tell a hundred stories which are all captured in my hyper-realistic style.

Archival Prints 

Many of Marc’s artworks are available as fine art digital prints. Professionally photographed and printed on large format inkjet printers, these prints are limited edition numbered bottom left and signed bottom right. The paper used is 320g Hahnemuhle archival watercolour paper. The process employs fade resistant, archival inks, which boast a 100+ year fade-proof guarantee.

The paper prints are sold plastic wrapped on an acid-free foamcore backing board. These prints are also available in varying sizes of canvas.