The Artist

Alena Duckworth was born in Utah and moved to British Columbia, Canada at the age of six. Growing up surrounded by the mountains and natural beauty of BC, she spent a lot of time outside cultivating a vivid imagination and planting the seeds of her relationship with nature and desire to protect it. Her creativity was always encouraged in her childhood by a family full of artists and craftspeople, including her parents, her aunts and uncles and her grandparents. 

Alena's skill was further developed in high school when she fell in love with acrylic painting. Through exploring acrylics she felt the freedom of being able to create anything and mess up while being able to cover it up and try again. Although she pursued higher education in science she quickly realized her passions lie in art and dropped out after a semester to pursue her art career. With no formal post secondary art education, Alena considers herself a self-taught and community taught artist. Alena began her career in makeup and face painting, developing an interest and skill in illusion painting, surrealism and special effects makeup. 

Today, Alena's goal is to create work focusing on inspiring others to see their connection to each other and to the earth as a whole. Her drive to create sustainable art through recycled and reclaimed materials emphasizes this hope for a better future. This drive extends to her life choices as a community advocate and vegan of nearly ten years. Alena's work crosses many mediums including murals, acrylic and watercolor painting, body and face painting, and sculpture. As she explores new mediums she finds more meaning in the process of creation and message of the work rather than placing importance on the medium itself. She's currently creating a collection of paintings and sculptures themed around water and the ocean for a future solo or group exhibition, to create urgency to protect this precious resource that gives us all life, as well ask exploring the symbolic and spiritual themes that water holds as a representation of emotions and conduit for magic and creation.