About Alex
Nature and the human condition inform my work. I am preoccupied with exploring harmony and tension, and finding grace amidst tumult. I use beauty to create pleasure and make feeling easier. As I work, I embrace control and chance, dark and light, delicacy and power.
I work with landscape, metaphor, symbolism and abstraction to explore energy and mood, creating imagery meant to be experienced physically, spiritually, and emotionally. I hope people will feel an openness in their chest, hear a visual piece of art, experience awe in looking.
I draw from nature’s stunning beauty, the power of weather and from the depth of my lived experience, bringing to my work honesty and light. A little like traditional Chinese literati painting, I use nature to express internal experience and ideas.
I want to engage the mind. Mystery, leaps of imagination and oddities make us think.
Water media and glass each offer me distinct opportunities. Making watercolors is intimate, intuitive and low-tech. Glass affords greater scale, architectural relevance and another kind of visual magic. My glass aesthetics stem from painting traditions. But glass is performative: its appearance changes with lighting and vantage point. Glass installations are alive. Some of my paintings now share the characteristic of looking different depending on vantage point and lighting conditions.
CV
Below are highlights. Click here to download a more extensive CV.
Collections – Partial list
United States Embassy; Bulgaria
U.S. Aid; Uganda
Oregon Health and Sciences University; Portland, OR
Good Samaritan Hospital; Puyallup, WA
Loomis & Sayles Company, Boston, MA
Southern Oregon University; Ashland, OR
Oregon State University; Corvallis, OR
McKinsey & Company; Chicago, IL
Genetech Corporation; San Francisco, CA
First Western Trust Bank; Denver, CO
Auburn High School; Auburn, WA
City of Portland, Oregon
Moda Inc.; Bend, OR
Hallmark Corporation; Kansas City, KS
Umpqua Bank; Portland, OR
Robbins Scientific; Palo Alto, CA
Opton & Black; Portland, OR
Solo exhibitions – Partial list
Once Asunder, Russo Lee Gallery, 2017
Meditations on Equilibrium, The Oregon Jewish Museum, 2013
Leaning into the Light, Port Angeles Fine Arts Center, 2013
Grants – Partial list
The Oregon Arts Commission
Oregon College of Art and Craft
Linfield College
The Ford Family Foundation
Education
Bachelor of Arts with Honors, University of Michigan
Bachelor of Fine Arts Magna Cum Laude, University of Michigan
Master of Fine Arts, Washington University
I am based in Portland, Oregon