Alexa Jade Frankelis (She/ Her) is a researcher and visual artist based in New York City. She received her BA in Art History and Criticism (Hons.) from Stony Brook University, and previously attended the BFA Photography and Video program at the School of Visual Arts.

As a researcher, Alexa has published her papers and images about witchcraft, spirit photography, and other occult subjects in many publications like A*DESK.org, LIFE Magazine, and Stephen Romano Gallery exhibition, Apparitions.

Her main focuses are mysticism and the occult within 19th to mid-20th century visual culture and theory. To view more of her research please visit her Academia page here. __________________________________________________

CV: Please hover over titles for website links

Selected Publications:

2023 The Ghostly Other (Journal Article), Visionary
Women Art x Bric-a-Brac Magazine

2022 Sleepy Hollow: Then & Now,
LIFE.com article (photography also featured)

2022 Revisiting the Sites of the Salem Witch Trials,
LIFE.com article

2021 Spirits & Suffrage, Feminine Macabre Vol. III

2021 The Ghostly Other (Essay), Issue 04, Fall 2021,
Speculative Arts Research Journal

2021 Transience, Issue 1, Fall 2021, Fantômes Zine

2021 The “Ordinary” Witches of LIFE Magazine,
LIFE.com article

2021 Art and Occultism, The Vindication of The Feminist
Voice Since the End of the 19th Century, “Speaking
Martian” Collaborative Series, A*Desk Magazine x
Visionary Women Art

2020 Peculiar, Volume 7, Black Flowers Literary Journal

2020 Apparitions, Exhibition Catalog (Introduction &
Essay), Stephen Romano Gallery

2020 The Gendered Narrative of Witch-Hunting Through
the Centuries, Crisis and Catharsis Journal, Stony
Brook University
(American Historical Association blog feature)

2019 Blurdenzine Press, Essay + Images, Fall 2019                  

Selected Presentations/Conferences:

2023 Modern Art History, Virtual Forum Moderator,
Babylon Citizen’s Council on the Arts

2021   The Ghostly Other (Lecture), Association for Art
History Annual, Association for Art History Annual
Conference, University of Birmingham,
Birmingham, England

2020 Senior Zoom Salon, Paul W. Zuccaire
Gallery, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY

2020  Spirits & Suffrage, CFP for the Emerging
Perspectives | UG and PG Masters Conference,
University of Edinburgh, Scotland

Selected Exhibitions:

2023 Local Artists Juried Group Show, Wappingers Falls,
NY

2023 Dark Matter, Cryptic Gallery, Poughkeepsie, NY
(Group Show)

2023 Bodies & Motion, LotusWorks Gallery, Beacon, NY
(Group Show)

2020 Apparitions, Stephen Romano Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
Virtual 3D Exhibition (Solo Show)

2020    Senior Show and URECA Art Exhibition, Paul W.
Zuccaire Gallery, Stony Brook University,
Stony Brook, NY (online Group Show)

Awards/Grants:

2020 Stony Brook University, Staller Award For
Excellence, Stony Brook, NY

2020 University of Edinburgh, Grant Recipient,
Edinburgh, Scotland

View fullsize Welcoming in October and the first of two full moons... Life has been too hectic lately to write anything up, but this is a picture I took of a Vanitas at the Met prior to lockdown. Exhibited in “Making Marvels: Science & Splendor at the
View fullsize “The terrorizing apparition of Evil which in the Mysteries of Eleusis was produced in its pure, truly revealed form corresponds to the dark hour of certain ancient tragedies which all true theater must recover.” -Antonin Artaud The anc
View fullsize So ready for Autumn, hope everyone has a lovely Mabon today and fall equinox tomorrow! Here’s a haunted history story to commence the season (*Trigger warning before continuing to read*) This is (a very distorted picture of) the Kreischer Man
View fullsize “A summer calm laid it’s soothing hand over everything, like death.” -Sylvia Plath I am very much ready for the start of Autumn next week. Also a short note on Sylvia Plath...I never read any of her works during my studies, so t
View fullsize Newest addition to my collection from @aweepingwidowantiques ! This coffin plate dates back to the late 19th century, and was rescued from an abandoned funeral parlor that also dated back to the Victorian era. I’ve never really seen a coffin pl
View fullsize “Dionysus once knew me... He found me again in Monte Verita draped in aesthetic illusions” #catskills #catskillsmountains #waterhole #nature #forest
View fullsize Unfortunately I couldn’t find any information on this altarpiece. The Vanderbilt mansion on the North Shore of Long Island was done in the revival style of Spanish Baroque, built in the 1920s-30s. It was designed by the same architects, Warren
View fullsize I’ve been really inspired by all the amazing artists taking over the @nyplpicturecollection lately! I recently picked up @magaliduzant book, The Moon and Stars Can Be Yours: Notes on Subway Psychics. (I also shared a picture of the beautifully
View fullsize Cabinet card from 1875, featuring a woman in mourning. I personally love the ornate border on this card and subliminal atmosphere of the image compared to other portraiture from the time. This piece is also exhibited in my recent collaborative proj
View fullsize “Over thy spirit, and sad images Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, And breathless darkness, and the narrow house, Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart; Go forth, under the open sky, and list To Nature’s teachings, whil
View fullsize Today marks exactly 100 years since the ratification of the 19th amendment. This amendment granted only white women the right to vote, still excluding BIPOC this freedom for decades to come. A leader in both the abolitionist and suffragist movement
View fullsize “Dusks and the gift of morning...when written in dead languages of ice will see resurrection” -From, “Books, Paintings” by Ryszard Krynicki I unfortunately forgot the history of who is interred here, but I’ll try to fi
View fullsize I am excited to announce about a collaboration with @stephen_romano_gallery launching today, on their new virtual 3D exhibition called “Apparitions.” I am extremely honored that Stephen asked me to collaborate with him on this project and
View fullsize I am so excited to share that I have been included in a multi-disciplinary journal project at Stony Brook University, @crisis_catharsis , which looks to past during times of crisis through text posts, videos, and virtual exhibitions to examine how pe
View fullsize “The romanticization of the past can only occur long after the damage - time enough for the effect of mourning to become an aestheticization of melancholy...Death holds an uncanny position of being simultaneously the most common and the most my
View fullsize Before resuming to posting again in the coming weeks, I wanted to state that things on here for me things won’t go back to “normal” because that normal was seeped in silence and oppression, and we cannot/will not return to that. I r

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Instagram: @TheMourningMoon 
Email: alexafrankelis@gmail.com
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linktr.ee/themourningmoon