Alex McQuilkin

Alex McQuilkin’s videos, installations, and works on paper engage with a distinctly American notion of what it means to be a young woman in Western culture. Her videos combine self-destructive performances with teenage sweetness, treating the endemic narcissism of the Facebook generation with dark humor. Likewise, her meticulously rendered drawings of women’s hair—isolated from the the bodies and faces of their owners—tangle with mass-media images of female beauty and the precarious projection of the self onto idealized and unrealistic models.

McQuilkin received her MFA from New York University in 2008. Her work was the subject of a solo exhibition at Tufts University in Medford, and she has shown at institutions including the Knoxville Museum, the Olbright Foundation in Berlin, the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, and the Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Roma, among others. She lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.