Alexandra Emberley is a Canadian interdisciplinary artist who works with textiles and garments to create installations on nature, identity, technology, and materiality. Her projects are inspired by myth and fable as well as archives, found objects, ornament, detritus, and personal memory. She brings these elements together through colour, pattern and techniques of drawing, embroidery (hand and digital), silk-screen, digital printing, felting, devoré, natural dyeing, hand-sewing, and tailoring.

In addition to her artistic practice, Alexandra has worked as an educator and researcher in post-secondary education for over sixteen years developing and teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in visual culture, film studies, craft and critical and creative research methods, and studio courses in drawing, print-making, and interdisciplinary studio-based inquiry. From 2015-2018, Alexandra served as Chair of the School of Craft and Emerging Media at AUArts, and as Program Advisor in the implementation of their first graduate degree, an MFA in Craft.

Alexandra has an Hons BA from the University of Toronto in Philosophy and Cinema Studies, a PhD from York University’s Faculty of Education, and an MFA in Printmaking from the University of Alberta. After completing professional certification in couture embroidery at the École Lesage in Paris in 2018, Alexandra went on to graduate from the Rhode Island School of Design with an MFA in Textiles in May, 2023. In 2023-24, she spent six months in the UK training in the drafting, tailoring and fitting of a bespoke suit jacket.

Alexandra’s work has been funded by the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, the Nova Scotia Arts Council, and the HRM Open Projects Program. She is the recipient of numerous scholarships and awards including the Alberta Foundation for the Arts Graduate MFA Student Award (2012), the Queen Elizabeth II Scholarship (2012), and the Rosanne Somerson Scholarship (2022, 2023). In 2022-23, she was a Graduate Fellow in Costume and Textiles at the RISD Museum and assisted in curating the “Sensing Fashion” exhibit.

Alexandra’s work has been shown throughout Canada and the US as well as in England, Japan, Slovakia, and Scotland. She has participated in residencies at the Banff Centre for the Arts, CAAF in Calgary, Alberta, Point Pleasant Park in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and the Bentlage Cultural and Museum Centre in Germany.

Full CV available upon request.