Aleph Contemporary is pleased to present a three-person exhibition titled ‘The Road to Utopia: Studio Carnival Paradise: Three Contemporary Painters’ featuring new works by American artist Alex McAdoo, British artist Lee Johnson, and Spanish artist Jaime Valtierra. This exhibition serves as an exploration of important formal and socio-political trends in international contemporary painting.
Curated by Rosa JH Berland, the exhibition goes live in the gallery's online Viewing Room on Tuesday September 15, 2020 through Sunday, November 15, 2020.
Inspired in part by canonical modernist techniques such as Expressionism and Fauvism, each artist transports the viewer through a series of paradisal worlds -- wild and carnivalesque -- reflecting a diverse and eclectic contemporary experience. We examine painting as a means for world-building through the creation of new aesthetic space, as well as a vehicle for social commentary, while elevating the role of fine art into a source of utopic possibility.
The artists diverge in artistic style, yet they share a directness in their painting characterized by the use of bold color, and an admixture of techniques. Featured guest artist Alex McAdoo’s figurative vignettes explore art history and racial identity, against the backdrop of today's political climate. Jaime Valtierra depicts totemic archetypes, fantastical creatures, and art historical symbolism, rendered through a calligraphic painterly language of the artist's own invention. Lee Johnson reimagines seemingly ordinary objects and mundane moments of daily life as extraordinary bursts of paradisal respite.
