By Ema Lynnx
Within the landscape of contemporary European art, Alexandra Mas She has established herself as a unique figure, simultaneously a visual artist, performer, and image theorist. Her current exhibitions in Paris confirm this positioning: she is currently exhibiting at the Grand Palais as part of...Art Capital, where she leads the group Abstract Expressionism of the Salon: Comparisons, presented from February 12 to 15, 2026.
This institutional presence is not anecdotal. It marks the culmination of an artistic journey built over more than three decades, between artistic research, intellectual engagement and exploration of media.
An early and international artistic trajectory
Born in Transylvania, Alexandra Mas entered the College of Fine Arts at the age of fourteen and met the engraver Marcel Chirnoagawho became her mentor. She began exhibiting at the age of seventeen, then continued her studies at theBucharest University of Fine Arts before settling in France to further his education.
She obtained a degree in design and interior architecture and subsequently collaborated with major institutions and brands such as the museum of Louvre ou Christian Dior, while developing projects for private collectors. A pivotal period occurred between 2006 and 2009 when she directed a talent school at Beverly Hills, a period during which she expanded her artistic and teaching practice.
Back in France, she decided to devote herself exclusively to artistic creation, building a personal universe nourished by collective memory, nature and societal questions.
A multidisciplinary artist between gesture and thought
Mas's practice is not limited to painting. It mobilizes pictography, video, performance, virtual reality, photography, writing and sound, composing a hybrid visual language that blurs disciplinary boundaries.
Nevertheless, drawing remains the guiding thread of his work, structuring his entire artistic exploration. His painting is characterized by a spontaneous and vibrant gesture, akin to a sketch, where the tension between strength and delicacy constitutes a formal signature.
Human figures occupy a central place, often inspired by dance and bodily movement, as if the artist were seeking to capture the suspended moment where action reveals the essence of being.
Abstract expressionism as a field of experimentation
Her role as head of the Abstract Expressionism group at Art Capital 2026 fits logically into this approach. The collective she leads claims the historical legacy of this movement, which emerged after the war around artists such as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, whose objective was to liberate painting from narrative in order to prioritize gesture, material, and emotion.
Mas's position is to extend this spirit rather than reproduce its forms, seeking a direct and sensory pictorial experience for the viewer. His recent series, such as Proto-Matter ou Be the Change, illustrate this orientation: they explore structure, matter and cosmic dynamics, integrating randomness as a creative principle and sometimes transforming the act of painting into a choreographed performance.
A critical reflection on image and society
Beyond the aesthetic dimension, Mas's work questions contemporary visual systems: identity, ecology, consumerism, representation of the female body.
This critical dimension is clearly apparent in his installation. Vanitas Nostrum, presented in Place Vendôme. The work assembled consumer goods and symbols of luxury in order to question the contemporary confusion between market value and genuine craftsmanship.
She emphasized in particular that the modern perception of luxury has "gone astray" into an obsession with objects that do not embody its essence.
This conceptual approach aligns with his commitment to the ARTIVISM project, a biennial founded to showcase artists engaged in socio-ecological approaches.
An international career rooted between Paris and Bordeaux
Based between Paris and Bordeaux, Alexandra Mas develops an international activity with exhibitions in cities such as New York, Miami, Bucharest or Saint Petersburg.
She is represented by several galleries, including HOHENTHAL AND BERGEN et Laurence Pustettoand has been collaborating with the photographer since 2016 Marco Tassini within the Mas Tassini Studio.
His participatory performances, such as LUX presented at Art Miami, illustrate his interest in collective interaction: the public is invited to write words of light on the canvas, transforming the work into a shared ritual.
Alexandra Mas's collaboration with The Edge Magazine This also constitutes a major aspect of her artistic and curatorial activity. She plays a key role as artistic director and co-founder, contributing to the definition of the publication's visual and editorial identity alongside the photographer. Marco Tassini, from the editor Diana Pernet and the editor-in-chief Cinzia MalviniThe magazine positions itself as a luxury publication designed as a collector's item, prioritizing in-depth content and a demanding aesthetic that blends research, exceptional photography, and dialogue with fashion houses and designers. Within this framework, Mas designs the art direction for fashion and jewelry photoshoots for prestigious brands, an approach that has notably contributed to their recognition by the Roma Fashion Photography AwardHer role goes beyond simple visual supervision: she also manages the media's artistic section, confirming its position as an interface between contemporary art, fashion imagery, and editorial storytelling aimed at a readership sensitive to aesthetic excellence.
Art Capital 2026: A pivotal moment
His current presence at Art Capital is not simply participation but a curatorial and unifying role. By leading an artistic group within the Salon Comparaisons, Mas acts as a catalyst for a generation of artists pursuing the exploration of abstract expressionism in a contemporary context.
This institutional visibility consolidates her status as an artist-researcher, at the crossroads of performance, painting and critical thinking.
The Mas signature
Alexandra Mas's work is based on a coherent conceptual architecture where gesture systematically takes precedence over narrative. For her, painting does not illustrate a story: it records energy. The line acts as a physical trace of inner movement, almost like a biometric capture of emotion. This gestural primacy aligns her practice with an expressionist tradition while simultaneously updating it through a performative approach where the act of creation itself becomes an event.
This dynamic is coupled with a constant hybridization of media. Painting, performance, photography, video, and immersive installations are not separate disciplines but layers of the same visual language. Mas thus constructs system-like works, where each medium plays a specific role in the transmission of a sensation or an idea, according to a logic akin to contemporary post-disciplinary practices.
Her work also explores the construction of the social image. The figures she depicts, often fragmented, in motion, or in transformation, question the mechanisms of identity projection and the visual models imposed by contemporary culture. This critical dimension is particularly evident in her approach to the body, a central motif in her work. The body appears not as a figurative subject but as a symbolic vector: a surface upon which psychic, social, and cultural tensions are inscribed.
Finally, a constant tension runs through her aesthetic: the tension between poetry and materiality. Textures, layers of pigment, and surface imperfections recall the raw physicality of paint, while the compositions exude an almost meditative, sometimes cosmic, dimension. This dialectic lends her work a singular intensity, where lyrical sensitivity coexists with rigorous artistry.
All of these elements together form an immediately identifiable signature. Alexandra Mas thus belongs to a lineage of artists for whom the work is not a simple aesthetic object but a device for experience, intended to activate in the viewer a broader perception of reality.
Alexandra Mas embodies a contemporary figure of the total artist: painter, performer, artistic director, and image theorist. Her current exhibition at Art Capital 2026 confirms the breadth of an international career marked by a constant exploration of the power of gesture and the symbolic function of art. In an often fragmented art landscape, her work stands out for its conceptual coherence and its ability to combine emotional intensity, social reflection, and formal experimentation—a rare combination that explains her enduring presence on the European and international art scenes.
Photos: Alexandra Mas
1/ Art Capital – Comparisons 2026 – from left to right: Werndl, Vasil, Mas, Axelrod and Chen
2/ The Fold of the Universe, aluminum and 24 and 18 ca gold leaf
3/ Art Capital – Comparisons 2026 – from left to right: Werndl, Mas, Pohu Lefevre, Leferme
4/ Art Capital – Comparisons 2025 – Proto-Matter Series (2000 to present) here K2 18B Lion, oil on canvas
5/ Alexandra – Jill Krutick art residence NY state, 2025
ART CAPITAL is open to the public the 12 15 in February 2026
FRIDAY 13th: 10am to 22pm
SATURDAY 14th: 10am to 20pm
SUNDAY 15: 10am to 19pm
