Alexa Kelemen Sold at Auction Prices

Alexa Kelemen - Born on a pastoral wheat farm in the outskirts of Cungrea, Romania, Alexa helped her parents from a young age in the planting and harvesting of their crops. With such an indoctrination in the natural world, she quickly grew to appreciate the seasonal cycle of the earth, and the drastic changes in color that came with this cycle. At the age of six, she was given a set of pastels and an elaborate sketching pad by her mother, and set out each door for an hour at lunch to render a different corner of their farm on paper. Her talent flourished quickly, and her intrinsic knowledge of light sources and color subtleties distinguished her from other art students all throughout her adolescence.

Keleman began her formal art education at the Institute of Art in Constanta. With a concentration in both realist landscape and abstract figural painting, and with already two years of experience as a graduate teacher's assistant in oriental decorative art, she attained her art degree with highest honors in 1965. The culmination of her studies came when three separate local galleries agreed to represent Keleman's work in annual one-person shows. Granted this freedom and with firm confidence, Keleman's immediate goal was to revisit the landscape and still life art of her youth - but with a fresh, modernist eye. Her intent was to personalize her landscapes by giving them emotional lives and complex characters. Keleman achieved this living-nature through her gifted, mellifluous use of color, and her often eerie shading and blurring.

With unique talent, Alexa quickly built her reputation throughout Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria, where numerous exhibitions of her works were held. In 1983, she chose to continue her training at the School of Popular Art, this time focusing solely on the art of the still life. With her formal training completed in 1986, Keleman was excited to move to the United States with her husband and son, where she immediately entered the Deljou studios. She has since received commissions by the well-known Romanian artist Valentin Popovidi. Among Alexa's past Romanian collectors are Olympic gymnast Daniella Silivlas and Nadia Comanici. Since her move to the U.S., Keleman has successfully exhibited her work in Atlanta and New York.