A Sacred Femininity
American Art Collector|November 2022
When Alessandra Maria laid eyes on Gustav Klimt's Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I at New York City's Neue Galerie in 2008, a world of artistic possibilities opened up before her.
By Alessandra Maria
A Sacred Femininity

"When I saw Klimt for the first time, something clicked for me," remembers the artist, then a student at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. "I realized that you were actually allowed to make work like this. I was gobsmacked. I couldn't believe that 100 years after this man died he was still giving this incredible gift of beauty, inspiration and transcendence. It became a compass point for me."

The influence of Klimt and "his unabashed use of patterns and gold leaf" is readily apparent in Maria's work, which she creates out of many layers of charcoal, carbon pencil, ink, paint and pastel before adding her gilt accents and adornments. "I love the effect of it," she says. "I love the way light will reflect off it and shift its shape."

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