Alexandra Connolly is a painter who works the texture of the city into oil on canvas. Her work draws on graffiti, street culture, and the visual noise of urban Mexico, moving between figuration and abstraction so that observation, distance, and emotional imprint end up pressed into the surface. Two original paintings are available now at Art of NOMA: Tattooed Heart (2024, 95 × 85 cm, USD 3,680) and Voyeur (2021, 40 × 60 cm, USD 2,800).
Who Is Alexandra Connolly and What Does She Paint?
Connolly paints the texture of the city. The source material is street level — graffiti, street culture, the visual noise of urban Mexico — but the paintings are not documentary. They sit between figuration and abstraction, holding on to something more intimate than the surfaces they come from. The gallery points to Voyeur and Tattooed Heart as the works that carry the practice most clearly: both hold the energy of the street without giving up on privacy.
That in-between position is the argument of the work. A painting that resolves fully into a figure tells you what to look at; one that dissolves entirely into abstraction tells you to stop looking for anything. Connolly holds the middle, where a form is legible enough to read as presence but never firm enough to name — closer to how a city is actually experienced, in glances and partial views, than to a portrait or a streetscape.
The medium is oil on canvas. Each original is unique, mounted on a professional wooden frame and ready to hang, and comes with a certificate of authenticity.
The City Pressed Into Oil on Canvas
Tattooed Heart (2024, 95 × 85 cm / 37.40 × 33.46 in, USD 3,680) is the larger of the two available originals and the more emotionally direct. The surface accumulates in slow layers, colour embedded in the weave so the picture feels built over time rather than staged. The title suggests something marked onto a person and left there, and the painting behaves that way — an emotional imprint more than an image, intimacy and composure held together, feeling arriving through control rather than display.
Voyeur (2021, 40 × 60 cm / 15.75 × 23.62 in, USD 2,800) applies the same material logic at a smaller scale. The title names an act of looking — deliberate, slightly charged — and the painting keeps you in that position: aware, at a distance, reading presence rather than a scene. Gesture stays measured, and the tension is held through balance instead of drama.
Technique matters here more than subject. Oil built up in layers does something a single decisive pass cannot: earlier decisions stay faintly visible under later ones, so the surface carries its own history. That is why these paintings reproduce poorly and read strongly in person. On a screen you see a composition; in a room you see accumulation — colour sitting inside the weave rather than on top of it. Collectors who have looked at a lot of contemporary painting test for exactly this, because it separates a built surface from a fast one.
The three-year gap between the two available works is worth reading too. Voyeur (2021) and Tattooed Heart (2024) are two points on a line rather than variations produced in a single burst — a practice that holds its language across years is a different proposition from one that changes direction every season.
Scale, Surface, and Living With the Work
The two paintings ask for different rooms. At 95 × 85 cm, Tattooed Heart sits close to square and is large enough to anchor a wall on its own; it wants viewing distance and a clear field around it. Voyeur, at 40 × 60 cm, is a landscape-format work that rewards close reading, where the layering stays legible — a hallway, a study, the stretch of wall beside a desk.
Proportion drives that difference. A near-square canvas has no strong directional pull, so the eye settles in the middle and stays; a landscape format moves the eye sideways and sits comfortably in a sequence. Neither is better — they solve different problems, and knowing which problem you have is most of the decision.
Both arrive mounted on professional wooden frames and ready to hang, so nothing stands between delivery and installation.
Where Connolly Sits Among Painters Working in Mexico
Connolly's work belongs to a wider group of artists at Art of NOMA who treat the built environment and the act of looking as material rather than backdrop. Reading them alongside each other makes her position clearer.
En Construcción by Jorge Tellaeche (acrylic on canvas, 2025, 30 × 25 cm, USD 1,540) approaches the same subject from the opposite side. Where Connolly lets structure dissolve, Tellaeche paints transformation as geometry — crisp edges and flat colour fields threaded with Aztec motif, a work deliberately held in mid-development. Its title, “under construction,” is the thesis: becoming rather than conclusion. Two painters, one city in flux, two entirely different grammars for it.
For My Next Trick by Daniel Stara (oil on canvas, 2025, 116 × 175 cm, USD 4,400) shares Connolly's interest in the withheld moment. Stara, born in 2000 in Florida, builds surreal, impressionistic landscapes through slow transitions and restrained colour, merging classical reference with post-apocalyptic tension. The title marks the charged interval before revelation — the same suspended attention Voyeur asks for, translated into landscape at a much broader horizontal format.
Héroes Invisibles by Raúl Cerrillo (oil on fabric, 2020, 180 × 130 cm, USD 7,500) pushes the question of who gets looked at. Cerrillo works oil and mixed media across jute, fabric and wood, circling time, the post-human, and the heroism of the unseen; the title names a tribute to figures whose work usually goes unnoticed. Connolly keeps her subjects at a deliberate remove — Cerrillo insists you finally look at his.
Placed together, the four say something about what painting in Mexico is currently doing: not documenting the city, but working out how attention is distributed inside it.
What Is Unavailable and What Comes in Editions
Not everything in the collection can be bought. El Centro (2025), a small 20 × 20 cm square oil that stays firmly on the abstract side of the practice, is not currently available and is named here for context only.
Connolly also issues limited-edition giclée prints — Constituyentes, Pia and As Yet Untitled 3, each signed and numbered in an edition of 100 at USD 199 — but the gallery leads with the original paintings, and the originals are where the work is best understood.
Editions serve a real purpose: they let someone live with an artist's imagery before committing to an original, and they are how a lot of collectors start. What they cannot do is reproduce a layered oil surface, which is the part of Connolly's work that carries the meaning. Treat a print as an introduction to the eye behind the painting, not as a substitute for the painting.
Collecting Connolly — Prices, Sizes and Availability
Art of NOMA publishes a price on every work, so there is no list to request and no reply to wait for. It is an online gallery with no physical space: works are catalogued, priced and bought directly from the site, and each original ships mounted on its frame with a certificate of authenticity.
Two Connolly originals are available as this is written — Tattooed Heart at USD 3,680 and Voyeur at USD 2,800. Because each painting is unique, availability changes as works sell.
That scarcity is what first-time buyers most often underestimate. With an edition, hesitation costs nothing; with a unique painting, a decision deferred is usually a decision made. Price transparency changes the same calculation. The traditional price-on-request model filters buyers by confidence as much as by budget — you have to know to ask, and know what asking implies. A published price removes that filter.
The practical test before buying is short: read the body of work rather than a single image, measure the dimensions against your actual wall, and confirm the work is unique, framed and documented. If all three hold, the only question left is whether you want to keep looking at it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Alexandra Connolly?
Alexandra Connolly is a painter whose work draws on graffiti, street culture and the visual noise of urban Mexico. She moves between figuration and abstraction, pressing observation, distance and emotional imprint into the surface of the canvas. Works such as Voyeur and Tattooed Heart carry the energy of the street while holding on to something more intimate.
What medium does Alexandra Connolly work in?
Her originals are oil on canvas, built in slow layers so colour settles into the weave. Each original is unique, mounted on a professional wooden frame and ready to hang, with a certificate of authenticity. She also issues limited-edition giclée prints on William Turner Hahnemühle 190 gsm paper, signed and numbered in editions of 100.
How much does an Alexandra Connolly painting cost?
The two originals currently available at Art of NOMA are Tattooed Heart (2024, 95 × 85 cm) at USD 3,680 and Voyeur (2021, 40 × 60 cm) at USD 2,800. Her limited-edition prints, at 55 × 55 cm, are USD 199. Every price is published on the product page.
Where can you buy Alexandra Connolly's work?
Through Art of NOMA, an online gallery with no physical space. Every available work is listed with its year, dimensions and price, and can be bought directly from its product page.
What sizes are her available paintings?
Tattooed Heart is 95 × 85 cm (37.40 × 33.46 in). Voyeur is 40 × 60 cm (15.75 × 23.62 in). Both are unique originals, so each size exists only once.
See every available work in the Alexandra Connolly collection, browse the wider range of original paintings, or meet the rest of the roster on the artists page. If you are weighing Tattooed Heart against Voyeur and want more detail on either — condition, framing, shipping, or how they read in person — write to us and we will answer directly.