John Alexander: Recent Paintings and Drawings
Exhibition Dates: May 5–June 23, 2018 Opening Reception: Saturday, May 5 from 6–10 pm Gallery Location: 432 Julia Street, New Orleans, LA 70130 Hours: Tuesday–Saturday, 10 am–5 pm Contact Info: 504.522.1999; www.arthurrogergallery.com
The Arthur Roger Gallery is pleased to present Recent Paintings and Drawings, an exhibition of paintings and works on paper by John Alexander. The exhibition will be on view at Arthur Roger Gallery, located at 432 Julia Street, from May 5–June 23, 2018, in conjunction with Jammin’ on Julia. The gallery will host an opening reception on Saturday, May 5 from 6–9 pm.
In this exhibition of paintings and drawings, John Alexander shows how his style has progressed and improved in his career spanning over 50 years. Alexander’s floral, bird, and satirical work goes beyond a traditional landscape or wildlife painter. His work is permeated with an uncertainty and partially ominous feeling rooted in man’s encroachment and destruction of the environment.
John Alexander’s work goes beyond the bucolic scenes of flora and fauna. Recent Paintings and Drawings on display at the Arthur Roger Gallery includes three of the artist’s satirical political work. This is the first time that Alexander’s political pieces are on display in New Orleans. As a child of the 50s and 60s, Alexander has always been politically active and wields uses his brush and charcoal as his weapon of choice.
John Alexander's unique observation of nature makes up the foundation of this exhibition, the artist’s sixth with the gallery. Rooted in direct study, these works call upon the natural world for guidance and inspiration. It is, however, the soulful, inventive and spiritual side of these works that truly define them. Alexander is able to capture a raw power made possible through a deep understanding of the complexities that make up the natural world.
John Alexander was born in Beaumont, Texas. During expeditions with his father, he discovered the exotic wildlife of the swampy marshlands of the bayou and Gulf Coast. Though he has lived in New York for over thirty years, he is still deeply inspired by the environment in which he grew up. This exhibition of new medium- and large-scale paintings and works on paper embodies his enduring passion for the wildlife, flora, and fauna of this region.
After completing an MFA in 1970 at Southern Methodist University, Alexander moved to Houston and became a member of the art faculty of the University of Houston. In the late 70s, Alexander left Texas for New York, first SoHo and later Amagansett on the south shore of Long Island. The artist settled there in an 18th-century farmhouse on three acres of land by the coast.
In late 2007, Alexander had a major retrospective of his work first shown at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. and then in spring 2008 at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. In 2012, “One World, Two Artists: John Alexander and Walter Anderson” was exhibited at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. His work is included in the permanent collections of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; the Dallas Museum of Art; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans; the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.
For more information please contact the Arthur Roger Gallery at 504.522.1999 or visit our website at www.arthurrogergallery.com.
