"Once, there was a little girl named Alex who would wander aimlessly in forests near home, hoping to find that trees could secretly talk. She would also search for holes in trees, walls and ceilings that would turn into dark, twisted tunnels that would lead to magical, dark, wonderful and dangerous worlds. It would be here that she would meet mysterious people and creatures that secretly hid somewhere within the seams of our world and theirs. To this day, these beliefs, as childish as they may seem, are still strong in me, waiting for a way to get out and be expressed through writing and art.

Ever since I was a child, I have always created new worlds; places that were either incredibly similar or incredibly different from our own. Along with those worlds, I would add people and imagine what their cultures were and what it would be like to live in those worlds. Occasionally, I would also visit them in my dreams as a wayward traveler that visited years before and knew all the old secrets and wisdom of the world. It was also at this young age, that I began to enjoy writing. It wasn't long before I began to combine the two and realized that they complemented each other. Both are able to show and give information about one another that the other can't. Writing can explain the things the viewer can't see in an image, while the images give the viewer an idea of what the characters and the cultures look like.

While creating my work, I think about the characters, their personalities and their culture; I think about what it would be like to live in their worlds. What it would feel like to taste the air, feel the rock and be one of those people. I also think about other elements that influence me, such as botany, biology and the landscape that makes Michigan. Anything that I find strange and peculiar, I enjoy taking it, twisting and creating something new.

The reason that my art looks the way it does is because I enjoy two types of drawing styles: realistic and comic book. I do realize that these two styles are completely different from one another, but my goal was to combine the two to create something new and interesting.

My body of work consists of specific individual characters from their own worlds. I wanted to portray them with different expressions, poses and how they look and behave in their own worlds. Each of them also has a story; something to give their backgrounds, their experiences, their losses and their gains.

In the end, this childish belief in magic and portals to other wolds, is, ultimately, my true inspiration and guide to creating art and writing. It's these things that make me want to keep creating new worlds, and characters and storylines so I am able to get them down on paper and make it possible for me to share them with others." -Alexandra Deykes