Alexandra Kynaston - Artist CV

Alex is a Naarm/Melbourne painter who was raised in Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Spurred by melancholy and nostalgia, Alex’s figurative oil paintings are embued with psychological themes and dreamlike imagery. Her style of painterly realism injects both whimsy and disquiet into her portraits and landscapes. 

​Since 2017, Alex has kept a studio practice and a commissioned painting business while studying in the BFA and MFA programmes at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT). She graduated from RMIT in 2023 with Distinction. 

​Alex exhibited most recently at Quadrant Gallery in the 2024-2025 Emerging Artist Summer Exhibition. Before this, Alex exhibited at the 2024 Brisbane Affordable Art Fair as a featured emerging artist and in several group shows and acquisitive prizes at RMIT, Queen's College Melbourne, and at Gillian Hillman (jewellery designer). Her work has been featured in both the In Aeternum magazine and Aedificamus journal from 2018-2020, and Alex performed as a creative consultant and featured artist in "The Gist of Generosity" art book by Dr Jenny Fagg (2020).

 Alex was a finalist in the 2024 Mosman Art Prize with her work Isabella's Garden (2023), and her works Nightmare (2019) and A Reality (2019) were acquired by Queen’s College for their journal cover art competition and Armistice Arts Prize. She won the 2018 Eccleston Arts Prize with her work Miranda (2018). 

​She is currently represented in Melbourne by Antoinette Ferwerda Gallery (659 Nepean Hwy, Brighton East) and PG Gallery (227 Brunswick St, Fitzroy). 

2024 "Emerging Artists Summer Exhibition", Quadrant Gallery, Hawthorn

2024 Mosman Art Prize, Mosman Art Gallery, Mosman

2024 "Emerging Artists" Antoinette Ferwerda Gallery, Affordable Art Fair Brisbane 

2023 "Discover: Young Talent", Affordable Art Fair Melbourne, Royal Exhibition Building

2023 "The Cure for Artists: Summer Edition", Preston ARI

2022 “MFA Graduate Show”, RMIT Buildings 2-6

2022 "The Cure for Artists", Preston ARI

2020 “Open Studio”, Gillian Hilman Designs

2020 “Art Red Hill”, virtual

2019 “Vampyra,” RMIT Building 6

2018 & 2019 “Quadstock”, Queen’s College