Alex Blau
I use paint to build joyously compromised structures that merge
the dualities of the natural/artificial and the personal/public. My
vision follows my experience of the world. I am inspired by the
use of color and patterns that instill desire and connection for
the individual and society. I farm for my abstractions, from the
patterns used in advertising and the packaging of foods people
crave—like candy and snack foods—to the patterns that flow
across the details of our everyday experience, like signs, floor
tiles, scaffolding, and flowers. Their intricate surfaces recall
the hallucinatory sweetness of candy packaging and the natural
beauty of flowers and historical decorative motifs like quilting and
Islamic tile. I delight in the unexpected mix of these associations
when making these works. By incorporating these varying graphic
languages, my work both points to abstraction’s open-ended
possibility and highlights its incorporation into mass culture.