Alexandra Cook aka Linandara
Feel closer, feel in awe of a possible tomorrow, full of space wanderings and technological wonders. Start your Paragon Quest, arming with freedom, reason and creativity. Embrace the otherness and create your own narrative through the glimpses of science fiction stories yet untold.
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Alexandra (“brush name” Linandara) was born in Moscow, lived in the USA and now resides mostly in Wales, UK. She visited many other countries which helped her to form a more objective view of the world.
Science fiction and stories about Native Americans were Alexandra’s fairy tales of the childhood. Star Wars and Lord of the Rings were obsessions of her adolescence, giving “other worlds and other times” perspective to her worldview.
Her mum raised Alexandra in a anti-socialist manner which helped her to develop an acute sense of freedom and independence.
In parallel to her hunger for science fiction, Alexandra always loved science and decided to study geography at the Moscow State University, then had been working in planetary science, studying Mars. It was the excitement of discovering the unknown, planning for a possibility of human expeditions and shear beauty of the red desert which she enjoyed the most.
She also always was painting and drawing a lot, inspired by great art she had seen in Russia since childhood, especially paintings by Van Gogh, Nikolai Rerikh, Ivan Bilibin and the “Twenty Moscow Avant Garde Artists” group. Later she was interested in all kinds of arts and crafts related to science-fiction and fantasy film-making.
In the confusion of 1990s and the downfall of Soviet Union she got exposed to ideas of Eastern-style mystics, “ufologists”, jungian typologists, Russian nationalists and monarchists and temporary got into the Russian Orthodox Church. Now she knows to stay away from any supernatural beliefs, irrational feelings, any groupthink or authoritarianism.
After she was married and her children were born Alexandra abandoned her science career and started to pursue the business of being an independent artist which she could combine with being a stay-at-home mum.
Alexandra’s art education consisted of attending classes, doing workshops and working side by side with many artists, including Rob Wareing, Ahmet Ozel, Susan Abbott, Bernard Barnes. Several of them praised her work. Her paintings are in private collections in many countries and a museum in Newtown, Powys. She participated in and curated group exhibitions, had solo shows, won a number of awards, did fine art commissions, book covers, movie props and costumes, posters and illustrations, run an art and craft shop, organized a couple of art trips. By doing so she figured out that it was science-fiction and fantasy inspired fine arts and crafts she enjoyed doing the most. And you can be good only at what you love doing.
Alexandra continues to travel, absorbing beauty of nature, greatness of human creativity, especially in architecture, folk and period art styles everywhere in the world. The senses of awe and otherness are what she cherish the most, also richly provided to her by period, folk and folk rock music she loves.
In 2013-16 she was close to several groups of environmentalists and “old hippies”. This experience convinced Alexandra to appreciate technological progress, true science, hard work, justice, honesty, strength, independence, abundance, optimism, responsibility and freedom which she often found being frown upon among “green” and “politically correct” people. She discovered Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism and enjoys many aspects of it.
Out of all that experience and thoughtful reasoning, her present work was born.
Throughout her life Alexandra found that the situations she didn’t enjoyed were the ones where others were trying to put their narrative to her life: talking on her behalf, putting her into a box of their limited imagination, misinterpreting, denying her experiences, not taking her “no” for an answer, judging wrongly, trying to bend her to their ideologies. This is why through her art she boosts your imagination, being your pathfinder to the Unknown, and lets you ample space to create your own story using her imagery, rather than being a teacher or a preacher.
The project VopreKin she worked on on 2017-2018 was about imagining a brighter future, what it can be (neither utopian, nor dystopian), how to reach it. She studies forward looking, futuristic architecture, design and fashion trying to find a place for meaningful art in technological, healthy, creative and prosperous human world of tomorrow, which she hopes we are heading towards.
Feel free to inquire about commissions. Did you ever wanted to live as if you were a hero in a best science fiction story ever? The fantasy you write or rewrite in your head, your own, created after years of reading, watching, imagining, playing? Let’s discuss how to make this happen!
The prices are outlined in the “Terms and Conditions” section.