Jane Alexander

Inside the triple barrier fencing in Alexanders 2007 piece Security with traffic (influx control) there is dark earth spread on the ground which is partly covered by matches, sickles, gloves and inner tubes. There is also a diverse group of hybrid creates inside. Alexander created this piece in reference to a barrier financed by the European union and built by the Spanish government in Melilla, which blocks an entrance into EU territory. This piece is also likely a commentary on migration, surveillance, land resources and ownership, and exploitation.

The Sacrifices of God are a Troubled Spirit was created in 2004 for as a site-specific instillation for the world's largest Gothic cathedral, at the Cathedral of St John the Divine which is in located in New York. Alexander's was inspired by the architecture of the Cathedral, as were the seventeen other artists who created works for this exhibition. Alexander's instillation comprises six figures, including a lamb with scarecrow-like stick arms, wearing a white dress, red gloves, blue rubber boots, and a crown of golden thorns, and a tall slender human-animal hybrid figure, holding a walking stick and wearing black boots, with one straight horn with a flag at the end, and one horn that is curled around on itself on his antelope-like head. There is also a hoofed animal with bound legs who carried a battered looking monkey on its back, a tall monkey figure with black boots and a jackal tail, a small four-legged animal, and vulture-like figure without wings or arms, who has bloody feet. All six figures are arranged together standing on copious amounts of red rubber gloves, in front of a large painting in the Cathedral. This piece was based in Psalm 51, a prayer for the remission of sins, with the lamb figure most likely symbolizing a sacrifice.

Made in 1999-2002, African Adventure is a site specific instillation originally made for the British Officers' Mess of the Castle of Good Hope in Cape Town, and later installed at the Tate Modern. This piece contains thirteen human, animal, and human-animal hybrids, as well as a wide array of found objects. The floor of the instillation is covered in red earth, and in the center there is a half naked man who drags a variety of farming tools behind him, and has a linen bag over his head, and a machete in his hand. This man may refer to Elias Xitavhudzi, a South African serial killer who murdered his victims with a machete. This piece is also said to comment on colonialism, identity, democracy, and the residues of apartheid.

Created in 1998, Bom Boys consists of a number of small, standing, grey-skinned figures. Some figures are partially clothed and others are naked, and each wears a mask or blindfold. They are all looking in different directions suggesting isolation and abandonment. The figures in this piece refer to the vulnerability of the displaced children in Cape Town, which the artist herself had observed while living there. It is unclear if the figures are predatory, or preyed upon.

During the course of her master's degree in the years 1985 and 1986, Alexander produced one of her most recognizable pieces of art; The Butcher Boys. The Butcher Boys is a sculpture of three men with a grotesque appearance made out of plaster, all sitting on a bench. The piece comments on the bestiality and dehumanizing effects of violence in Apartheid era South Africa. In an article in the New York Times, Holland Cotter describes that "their bodies, white-skinned and muscular, are superb, but with suture lines running from navel to throat, also disturbing". This line that Cotter describes is a dark vertical scar that implies the larynx has been removed which would render each figure unable to speak. The piece includes exposed backbones as well as various horns on each figure, all of which were used from animals. The piece has one of the most widespread recognition in the South African National Gallery.

Jane Alexander (born 1959) is one of the most celebrated artists in South Africa. She is a female artist best known for her sculpture, The Butcher Boys. She works in sculpture, photomontages, photography and video. Alexander is interested in human behavior, conflicts in history, cultural memories of abuse and the lack of global interference during apartheid. Alexander's work is relevant both in the current Post- Apartheid social environment in South Africa and abroad.

Alexander was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1959. She grew up in the peak of South African Apartheid in the early 1980s. Growing up however, she was not particularly aware of all the political issues that surrounded her, but upon the time she entered university and moved to Braamfontein she became more aware of the social and political issues that were present in Apartheid South Africa. Her interest in these issues influenced her subsequent installations and art pieces. Inspired early on in her career by the figurative works of George Segal, Ed and Nancy Kienholz, Duane Hanson, and David Goldblatt. Alexander attended the University of the Witwatersrand where she obtained a bachelor's degree and a Master of Arts in Fine Arts in 1982 and 1988. Currently, she is senior lecturer of sculpture, photography and Drawing at Michaelis school of fine art in Cape Town where she has taught since 1998.