Jane Alexander was born in Johannesburg in 1959.

From a very young age she started showing great

artistic talent, and is now one of South Africa's most acknowledged sculptors. She studied at the University
of Witwatersrand and obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art degree in 1982. That same year, she was the
winner of the National Fine Arts Student Competition as well as the Martienssen Student Prize. In 1988
she completed her Masters in Fine Art. She had initially started her degree majoring in painting, but
eventually changed to sculpture as she found it much more appealing and realized that she was more suited
to it. At university, Alexander was exposed to information about the political situation in South Africa
through students' underground organizations and activities, and this contributed greatly to her work.

When growing up in the suburbs, Alexander had been shielded from everyday police- and street violence.
However, when she moved to city of Braamfontein in order to be closer to her university, she was faced
with reality and was directly confronted with these aspects of society. At the same time, the political
situation in the 1970's was changing, and black consciousness had become very noticeable - the 1976
Soweto uprising had been an eye-opener for many people. Despite the fact that Alexander, herself, was not
politically active and did not contribute to the struggle in any way, her work was extremely influenced by
the socio-political situation in South Africa at the time. Her work clearly responds to the violence in South
Africa during these years, and because of this she is seen as one of West Coast African Angel, '85 the
most important artists of the Resistance.

After completing her degree, Alexander went to a school in Rehoboth, Namibia to teach English. She now
lives in a flat in Long Street in the centre of Cape Town from where, on her balcony, she has a view of the
old Cape architecture, as well as bookshops, antique stores and sex shops. In 1995 Jane Alexander was the
winner of the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Fine Art. This award is given to people who are
acknowledged as being important artists within the South African art scene. In 1996 she was the joint
winner of the First National Bank Artist of the Year award with Kevin Brand. Probably her most famous
piece, "The Butcher Boys, 1985", is in permanent exhibition at the South African National Gallery, and is
the most popular contemporary piece in the collection. It was made while Alexander was still in the
process of completing her Masters degree at Wits. In 1995, it was chosen by Jean Clair for his show
"Identita e Alterita" ("Identity and Alterity") in the Palazzo Grassi at the Venice Biennale.

Jane Alexander is currently the senior lecturer in sculpture, photography and drawing at the Michaelis
School of Fine Art, the University of Cape Town. She also is the proud mother of a baby boy.

Jane Alexander never gives any comment about her works, and therefore we have to depend on critics to
guide us to a closer understanding of her work. It also forces viewers to examine her work more carefully,
and to make their own interpretation. Earlier in her career, Alexander said that part of the reason why she
makes things realistic is because she doesn't really want to explain her work. She likes people to make
their own interpretation, and doesn't mind if it's completely different from her own. To quote Ivor Powell,
(Grahamstown Festival catalogue writer) Alexander's work "reflects and explores a sense of being. It
presents, through the sustaining metaphor of the human figure and its transmutations, a relation of the
individual to the society".

Of her exhibition at Grahamstown, 1995, he wrote, "Alexander is a sufficiently mediumistic artist to have
captured in those forms the brutalized spirit of a disturbed time - the rampant violence of the mid to late
1980's. But by the same token, she is a sufficiently authentic artist to be concerned with subtler and more
philosophical issues of identity in our own time. Those expecting to find raw meat and dangling entrails -
the paraphernalia of art as a horror movie - at the Settlers' Monument in Grahamstown are in for a
disappointment..."

In Alexander's earlier years, she had already begun to focus on her reoccurring themes of violence,
aggression, cruelty and suffering. Her work is always related to the human figure as she is interested in
anatomy as a form of expression. Because of the fact that her figures are life-sized, they have an amazing
presence and create a dramatic impression. Her earliest figures were concerned with victimization, and
were much smaller than her later pieces. "Untitled, 1982", the piece that won her the National Fine Arts
Student Prize, is a good example of it. Using anthropoid and human forms, Alexander created two skeletal
carcass images through the incorporation of bones, and using wax as a covering with plaster. Before being
coated with wax, the bones and modelled plaster were painted in watercolours, creating the effect of
anatomical materials. The figures are elongated as if they had been stretched by a torture rack, or deformed
and shrunken due to starvation. Untitled, 1982

The exposure of internal human anatomy signifies injury or deformity. As her works developed, she began
to give them a more decorative quality and they became increasingly more representational. She realised
that by making her works bigger, they would have a more dramatic sense and certain meanings could be
more appropriately conveyed. Many themes have been explored over the years, such as seductiveness,
sensuousness, vulnerability, victims, suffering and aggression. Her earlier works were often of mutants,
animal-like figures, and distorted beings. She eventually progressed towards realism, and when it comes to
her portrayal of the human figure, her work definitely matured. When one compares her earlier work with
her more recent sculptures, one can see that although her message has not changed much, the way that she
portrays it has changed considerably.

Alexander does not only create sculptures, she also incorporates them into photomontages. Through the
making of these photomontages, she explores environmental and contextual possibilities which help her
with her sculptures. One of her best-known photomontages is "By The End of Today You're Going To
Need Us, 1985-6" containing "The Butcher Boys, 1985". Alexander enjoys the fact that photographs can
be distorted, changing the viewer's perspective of the actual incident. The subject matter of the
photomontages varies - some is very personal, others are less tied to specific events and are often images
taken from newspapers or her own photographs.

Her personal photomontages deal with her own experience and family history. Her father, who was a
German-Jew, lived near Berlin during the rise to power of the Nazi Party during the 1930's. Because of
this, Alexander created a series of photomontages - "Triumph over Capitalism", dealing with the Nazi's and
has titles such as "Fur Deutsche Geschichte", "Sozialistisches Vaterland DDR", "Erbschein", etc. Her less
personal photomontages are less tied to specific events, and often explore ideas through juxtaposition.