Alexandra Beaumont

2023 Early-Career Project Grantee | $8,000

Dancing with Friends

Alexandra is developing a body of work—several large-scale parade banners featuring dancing figures—that originates from a magnificent, celebratory dance party. She intends to host a real joyful boogie-down where the event and participants are photographed, and those images become the basis for the banners. Eventually, the banners themselves will be paraded into a gallery space where the finished work will be on exhibition. The whole process – beginning with community movement; combining the boldness of celebration with tenderness of portraiture in the textile creation, and ending in celebratory display – will capture and build on the roots of inspiration that spark Alexandra’s art making.

Alexandra Beaumont is a textile artist and dancer working in fabric and movement to explore personal and collective joy, celebration, and expansion. Her handmade banners reference the visual, kinetic, and metaphoric elements of parades, through collaged cloth portraits of celebrants in movement. Her first solo exhibition “Version”, exploring her Jamaican heritage through sense memory, was presented at Ridgewater College in Minnesota in the fall of 2022. She is a member of PF Studios in Minneapolis, MN and contributes to the development team of Public Functionary, a gallery, performance space, and café supporting BIPOC and LGBTQ artists in the Twin Cities.

Forecast has been offering early-career artist grants supported by Jerome Foundation since 1989. In addition to funding, Forecast is dedicated to providing professional development and learning opportunities designed to assist emerging artists as they experiment/ hone their practices, and cultivate careers in the field. Forecast mid- and early-career grants are designed to support independent projects, leadership development, professional development, risk-taking, multidisciplinary approaches, and collaborative problem-solving in the field of public art.