Every artist needs talent.

Every artist needs drive.

A little bit of luck never hurt, either.

 
Alexander Krivosheiw (pronounced Kriv-o-shay) had already demonstrated that he possessed prodigious amounts of the first two qualities. Last year, he fell into a full ration of the third after placing a display ad in Florida Design. A copy of the magazine ended up on a private plane in Switzerland, where it was seen by someone who happened to be in need of something very special.

As a result, Krivosheiw received a project from the International Olympic Committee to create an original work along with a personal invitation to attend the summer games in Rio de Janeiro.

“His sculptures are like ballet,” says Louis Massicotte, a dedicated Krivosheiw collector, with work on display at both his Bal Harbour and Cayman Island residences, including an elegant torso from the Moore’s Canova collection, which is based on the acclaimed sculpting style of Henry Moore and Antonio Canova’s renowned Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss. “His work is sexy, feels contemporary, and has a palpable sense of movement. I love what he does.”

Locally, one of Krivosheiw’s hand-welded, and shaped creations – created in the laborious, old-school technique of metal fabrication – was selected as the first public artwork created under the City of West Palm Beach’s revised Art in Public Places Law, which requires developers to either provide art for public viewing or contribute to a fund for public art. Alexander’s sculpture Calliope adorns the Tara Cove townhouse community on North Military Trail.

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Sleek, glistening, aerodynamic sculptures in various stages of completion clutter Krivosheiw’s well-appointed studio. In form they resemble sensual, coalesced quicksilver that straddle the line between abstraction and representation. “The studio’s ambience, the works in progress, sketches and everything in between provide insight into his creativity and work ethic,” says Sybille Welter, Art in Public Places coordinator for the City of West Palm Beach. It is an environment reflecting creative ferment.

Typically, Krivosheiw bounces between six or seven projects at once, working in bronze, stainless steel or aluminum. Fascinated by the fundamental nature of metal’s longevity and strength, as well as its inherent elegance, he begins by roughing out a design on paper, then cutting and forming the paper. If the shapes are pleasing, he moves on to replicating the paper designs in metal, bending and welding metal sheets together before completing the sculpture with a glistening finish.

“I didn’t choose this life,” he says. “It chose me. The goal is to make beautiful things for people.”

Krivosheiw’s father ran a graphics and printing company, and one of the artist’s earliest memories involves him using blocks of wood and his father’s tools to construct new shapes out of old ideas. After that, he began drawing and painting, then apprenticed in Greece, before eventually working with the abstract sculptor Kevin Barrett. Three and a half years ago, he made the move to Florida and hasn’t looked back. “I can focus here,” the tall, articulate artist says. “I miss the camaraderie of the artist community in Brooklyn, but I get more work done here.”

Drawing inspiration from sources as varied as industrial design and ancient Greek mythology, Krivosheiw hammers out a sophisticated balance between the familiar and foreign, effectively, as his artist’s statement says, expressing “the song of movement and the poetry of emotion through the language of metal.”

“I think the most important thing for an artist is discipline. Every day you have to do something to make things, and make them more efficiently. You have to make the work,” he says. “The space between the viewer and the work is where the magic is.”