DAVID T. ALEXANDER | Inscapes and the Persistence of Nature

Opening, 5pm - 7pm Friday, October 25th - December 21st

How do you distill the energy of endless seas and skies, monumental mountains and cliffs, and vast prairies and deserts into something more tangible? It’s something that painter David T. Alexander has endeavored to do with his work for most of his career. Whether on imposing canvases that span several feet or pieces that can be held with two hands, the exuberant, layered brushstrokes packed with color are part of a constant dialogue taking place between Alexander and the natural world.

Much of his latest work is inspired by recent explorations in New Mexico, a state he first visited in 1996 and felt immediately drawn to. “I instantly fell in love with the desert,” he recalls. “I don’t know why, but I feel extremely comfortable there – well, not comfortable because it’s not a comfortable place in the desert physically – but visually I find it astounding.”

Alexander says the work is “an amalgamation of where I’ve hiked, driven through, walked over, looked at, thought about, that is so different than where I live.” Some of the pieces show dramatic shifts between mesas and buttes, rock and sky, while others show a land patterned with sage and juniper. Many reference areas that left him quietly awestruck. “At one point I couldn’t even talk about the landscape I was looking at because it was so different than what I’ve experienced there many times. But I’m always looking for that experience – it’s got to be there for me.”

Each time Alexander puts brush to canvas or pen or pencil to paper, the end result contains a degree of that type of experience. It’s become an almost daily ceremony of endless reexamination and contemplation, of “being in a place over and over and over, until I don’t need to look anymore” Alexander states. “I can honestly say I go to bed, I dream about making art, I wake up and I make more art. I can’t stop. The inquiry is never ending.”
View work in the exhibition   ►