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Painting
Alex Stern
The cross examination of art historical content
and contemporary culture by my personal philosophical perspective yields a
resonance of ideas from varied perspectives. Paintings are a hybrid plane where
psychology and materiality weave a layered composite. Making paintings is a
prayer-like practice, meditating on the unknown known, the unnamable—a
transformative space where the subjective converts to the objective—all while
contributing and participating in a discourse that spans a wider continuum of
time and history. While I approach the work with specific socio-political
questions in mind, my practice includes an openness and freedom to undo or
shift my original intentions. By relinquishing partial control, I allow the
media to inform new and evolving inquiry and, in turn, varied opticality. Self-argument and material-argument work in
unison to reject certainty while arriving at a dynamic yet finished facture. It
is this process, and a disciplined life routine outside of the studio, coupled
with a complex reckoning with personal history, that defines my practice.
![Valence, 2019, oil on canvas, 79 x 65”.](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/3aad48479fd7f6159585e803618d0b9d893a540ae50fde2e6f4221ffd344072a/1.-Valence.jpg)
![Meat Grinder, 2019, oil on canvas, 111.5 x 66.5”.](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/a0389cdd772a36f845b115a310e5cc98d2c0dfaf37ed9ac7b447ddbdcdbbbc31/2.-Meat-Grinder.jpg)
![Reward, 2019 Oil and photo-transfer on aluminum on canvas, 87.5 x 68”.](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/1d38f173f37da89f6ffae200d99f90755ffe377f30e7d158a5984d832fbb18a7/3.-Reward.jpg)
![New York Island, 2019 acrylic, oil, collage, silver leaf, and inkjet on canvas, 48 x 36”.](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8424592d4720b6134818c0846f058805df5b36e8b1d525ccea54239f0b4e3ffd/4.-New-York-Island.jpg)