Alexa Wajed: Portions

Little Parts of Me unfolds through three interwoven sections. Works on paper are created using natural dyes made from pomegranate skins, beets, hibiscus, and butterfly pea flowers. Each material carries memory and intention: pomegranate skins as an echo of her father, butterfly pea flowers for healing. Gum arabic and cloves are added to preserve the pigments, though fading is inevitable. Like memory, the body, like care itself, these materials shift, wash away slightly, and change over time. Nothing here is meant to remain untouched.

Vessels: baskets, bowls, compartments, purses—forms designed to hold. These works reflect the human tendency to carry more than we should, and longer than we realize. The artist asks: Why do I possess so many containers? They are all just there, empty. What am I holding on to? They speak to unconscious accumulation: emotional labor, responsibility, grief, love. They linger between fullness and release, asking what it means, what it feels like, to finally empty something when we know we need to.

Spice Drops draw directly from memory, specifically the artist’s mother, who loved the candy of the same name. Actual spices are incorporated into the works, blending scent, texture, nostalgia, and Wajed’s culinary background. These pieces are small but potent, grounding sweetness in substance.

Black Drops shift the language. Fine line work interrupted by larger black dots. They act as punctuation marks, moments of gravity, silence, and interruption, some thoughts landing heavier than others.

Portraits & Abstract Identities: six digital drawings that anchor the exhibition in the human figure. An exploration through black and white compositions, punctuated with color, where identity is fluid, layered, and unfinished—never one thing, never fully named. These are not likenesses so much as rendered emotional presences, attitudes, characters, fractured mental states. Each portrait is paired with a poem, extending the image into the language and interiority of the artist.

Gesture Acquires Mass: the exhibition introduces sculptural pieces that extend Wajed’s signature line work into three dimensional space. Large cutout shapes, manually constructed and carved using sign-making materials, and wood, further evolve her long standing practice in leather work and bring her meditative mark making into the physical realm with no expectations.

This exhibition is not about grand gestures. It is about what is possible in between—responsibilities, difficult and beautiful moments–embracing all that she has, she honors what can be made in portions.