| Gallery Representation URL: |
www.pablosbirthday.com |
| Short Bio: |
Alexander Reyna has had solo exhibitions in New York and also national and international exhibitions in the United States and overseas. He has exhibited his work in New York at The Scope Art Fair, Hunter College, and ABC No Rio, among other venues.
His experience includes several years with Sean Scully, some time with Laurie Simmons and Carroll Dunham, and occasional projects with various established artists.
He also has taught for several years in the B.F.A. program at the School of Visual Arts as well as, more recently, in the Master's program at New York University. He is an Assistant Professor at Mercy College.
Alexander Reyna received his BFA from University of New Hampshire and his MFA from Pratt Institute. He resides in New York City and has a studio in Brooklyn.
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| Additional Comments: |
My work begins with the impulsive desire to document my personal fixations. It does not attempt to create illusions or tell stories-unless these stories are non narrative. To achieve this, I engage in a form of search and retrieval from media culture blended with a form of introspective iconography. Often the imagery I use is something that attracts me and represents a visual archive of my likes. At times I�ve drawn on other artists, to my immediate urban landscape, and in instances I�ve chosen to represent things which have remained since my childhood. Usually this presents itself in the form of cartoons or manga. In a sense, I�m creating a space, bounded within my aesthetic, which compiles experiences-humorous and disturbing, good and bad, beautiful and profane-to create a synthetic, re-imagined whole. It is read in a superficial accessible manner, mediated through a hyper-structured sensibility, while alluding to deeper layers of meaning. Regardless, in all aspects I�m using ideas which have been given to me via culture. In this regard, what I do is a form of visual ethnography dealing with contemporary culture, albeit a self-selecting and highly idiosyncratic one.
People understand the media. It�s constructed to be comprehendible, spoken in a language which is superficial and accessible. I�m using the language and tools of mass media to recontextualize and neutralize original intentionality. My work attempts to subvert The Corporation using the very tools that give those institutions their power. In a sense, this slight form of trickery also introduces a collaborative act into the process because, in reality, the art object exists in a matrix between the original product, my intentionality, and the preconception of the viewer. In working with media culture it�s as if The Corporation is an unknowing but implicit participant in the art which uses corporative, culturally translated iconography as its starting point. This makes perfect sense because these units of media are built to be bought and consumed and I choose to resist this by freely subverting and appropriating.
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Jennifer Jacobs
