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The cross examination of art historical content and contemporary culture by my personal philosophical perspective yields a resonance of ideas from varied perspectives.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.