Tayloe Piggott Gallery is pleased to present Recent Paintings a new exhibition by renowned artist John Alexander. This exhibition features captivating scenes of wildlife in an aesthetic true to Alexander’s oeuvre. Thought provoking and eerie, this series showcases flora and fauna in peculiar settings that illuminate the fragility of our current biosphere. A public reception to celebrate the opening of this exhibition will be held Thursday, June 20th from 6-8pm. All are invited to attend.
Alexander is a contemporary American artist whose work incites a profound message about the dissolution of both our political and natural environments. By critiquing our current state of affairs, Alexander’s art aims to awaken us to the fact that we must enact change in order to persevere not only Earth’s plants and animals but also ourselves. From landscapes to still lifes to portraits of political and social figures, Alexander unites his diverse subjects through his intriguing and often satirical portrayal of our ecological and social domains.
Alexander’s compositions display the beauty inherent to our natural world in a comparable way to historic masters such as Claude Monet and the artists of the Hudson River School. While reminiscent in imagery, Alexander goes beyond the work of these past visionaries to suggest something sinister within each landscape. Illuminating the fragility of our natural world, Alexander depicts birds in dark, confused backgrounds, murky ponds of koi fish and gloomy bayous. Although his paintings exhibit humankind’s disfiguring impact on nature, Alexander often includes a hint that there is still hope for a brighter future. Alexander lightens the mood of his artworks with a touch of light peeking through the clouds, or a humorous element embedded within his paintings, suggesting that we can learn from our mistakes to create a harmonious future.
Visually arresting, this new series of paintings by Alexander focuses on scenes of flora and fauna. The painting, Awkward Wedding, depicts three white ibises in a setting that causes the viewer to pause. The light emanating from the clouds as well as the beautiful orchids hanging from the branches of the bird’s home seem to present a welcoming image. However, the body language of the ibises posed amid a tangle of mossy branches indicates that the birds are uncomfortable and on edge. Carefully eyeing the viewer, this painting gives light to the truth behind the dissolution of the ibises’ natural home.
Currently, John Alexander spends his time between New York City and Amagansett, East Hampton. His work has been widely exhibited at the top museums and galleries in the United States including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Corcoran Gallery of Art and the Houston Museum of Fine Arts. His work is also featured in many permanent collections such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Dallas Museum of Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. Alexander is the recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts (1984) and The Opus, Ogden Museum of Southern Art (2018).
