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An Interview with Alexis James. Who and where are you from? I am Alexis James. My mother had me at 16 and my father was 18. My father passed away at 23 from pancreatitis as a result of excessive alcohol use. How you got into this? I am from Indiana. My family comes from a long line of French heritage on both sides and many suffer from alcoholism. I was not excerpt from alcohol abuse. In fact, a couple years ago it almost killed me. I had always loved art but through the early stages of sobriety it was my saving grace. I took all of my obsessive energy and put it into my painting. I began realizing how free I felt as a result. To be focused on not the world, but to be in my head alone with me in a physical trance. What is your driving force? My driving force is nothing more than freedom. I never go into a piece with any predetermined outcome. In fact, my paints are in a big bucket that I just reach my hands into while creating and use what the universe gives me. I don't want my work to be constrained by worldly ideas or images so I leave both out of my works. This allows them to be closer to the spirit realm that lies beyond ourselves. What kind of work you do and why? In my pieces I use primarily oils with the occasional plaster. While channeling the spirit world I wanted to allow a more organic and 3D image to appear. Allowing for the images to come through more whole and clear. Texture gives another voice to the truth I am channeling from a deep intuitive area in the mind and heart. In summary my work is about freedom from the world we know, the pain that can be felt, even freedom from the happiness that we can feel as a result of our human condition. It's a way to shut down from what we know and open up to a world that we do not know. I allow the connections of what we are surrounded by to dissipate and I slip into wonderland. Where I allow the white rabbit and the catipillar to speak through me. I am unattached and free.