Alex Ito
Ocean Waves (shamu)
Paint, plaster on wood
35 x 47 in
Alex Ito is an American artist born and living in Brooklyn New York. He completed his BFA at the Pratt Institute in 2013 in Art History and Cultural Studies. Since his graduation he has had a solo exhibition and three month residency, from June to August in 2013, with The Still House Group, also in Brooklyn.
During 2014, Ito has exhibited at the Rob Barton Gallery in London, at Art in General in New York and at the Water MvBeer Gallery in San Francisco. The artist has also recently displayed alongside Brendan Lynch at the Steve Turner Contemporary Art Gallery in Los Angeles in the show titled Single Image, and featured in his solo show at The Still House Group, Redhock, New York titled Victory. His work has also been shown in various group exhibitions, including Floods Slit the Hills, Topless, Brooklyn, NY, 99cent Plus Inaugural Exhibition, 99cent Plus, Brooklyn, NY, The Still House Group, Il Museo Pino Pascali, Italy and Straight II DVD, 1632 Pennsylvania Ave. Miami, FL.
His oeuvre expertly interchanges between the mediums of painting and sculpture. His paintings typically depict fragments of text that are designed to reflect a stream of consciousness. The sources for his paintings are deeply evident in their depiction. Drawing confirmation from the relationship between origin and result, the artist emphasises the power of art to reflect, explain and reveal contemporary culture. His pieces are often monochrome with sporadic additions of colour elements. The artist’s interest in clean simplicity and juxtaposition highlights the clarity of his message and the focus of his creative ambition. His sculptures aim to fulfill a similar purpose: referring to them as ‘open-scripts’ with multiple meanings, the artist confirms their both implicit and explicit conclusions.