Spotlight Artist

Alex Maceda

MFA Annual
Artist profile photo

closed circuit (sea of forgiveness)

Abstract painting with bold reds, oranges, and blues forming symmetrical shapes.

oil and oil stick on canvas

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Abstract painting with bold reds, oranges, and blues forming symmetrical shapes.
Subscriber accessSubscribe to gain full access to all artworksSubscribe
Abstract painting with bold reds, oranges, and blues forming symmetrical shapes.
Featured in New American Paintings1 / 3

Artist Statement

My work is an interplay between opacity and transparency via the textured application of paint, sheer washes, and/or exposed canvas to question what we (can) see, what comes through, and what lies beyond. My compositional themes center around eroticism, animism, religious mythology, and fate: what and who is destined for us, what we reach for, how that calls for us.

Informed by observation, but untethered from strict representation, my work moves between descriptive and intuitive. Undulating figures, anthropomorphic landscapes, and swaths of color morph in and out of each other and the spaces they occupy. My compositions combine religious iconography with geometric abstraction to depict divine figures: plant and animal spirits, gods and goddesses, celestial bodies.

Artist's Additional works

Works shared by the artist outside of their featured New American Paintings selections

oil on canvas
hemispheres - 2026oil on canvas, 12 x 14 inches
oil on canvas
malasana - 2025oil on canvas, 10 x 12 inches

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Education

  • MFA in Painting, New York Studio School, New York, NY, US
  • MBA, Stanford Graduate School of Business, Stanford, CA, US
  • BA in Classics, Studio Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, US

Solo Exhibitions

  • sun salutations, Half Gallery, NY, NY, US
  • fantasy is a place where it rains, NY Studio School, NY, NY, US
  • the desert will hold you, Herron House, Costa Mesa, CA, US
  • FLIRT, Upper Market Gallery, San Francisco, CA, US

Selected Group Exhibitions

  • Friends Fair, Half Gallery, Austin, TX, US
  • Future Fair, Loft Projects, NY, NY, US
  • disappearing boundaries, Harper's Apartment, NY, NY, US
  • Future Fair, Visionary Projects, NY, NY, US

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