Alec Franco

Plastic ADN IV, Mixed media Abstract painting on Canvas

2022

The “Composition with Tools” series engages observers with quirky and playful truisms, gently leading them toward deeper reflections. Jose Ricardo Contreras...

The “Composition with Tools” series engages observers with quirky and playful truisms, gently leading them toward deeper reflections. Jose Ricardo Contreras...

The “Composition with Tools” series engages observers with quirky and playful truisms, gently leading them toward deeper reflections. Jose Ricardo Contreras...

For Jose Ignacio Suarez an abyss of time and space distances him from those who were the first inhabitants of the Brazilian coasts and of this vast American continent. His initial la...

Mat Tomezko's latest series of mixed media paintings uses evocative materials and imagery of fire, flowers, food, newspapers, asphalt, and ash to illuminate the interconnectedness of destructive and creative forces. "Real Fire" depicts flames and fire above a segment of abstract forms in spray paint recalling street art and graffiti tags. This painting is signed and dated on the back. It includes all hanging hardware and is ready to install -- no need for additional framing. Tomezsko is an artist from Philadelphia who creates abstract paintings, public art installations, and community art projects based around participation and everyday visual language. His approach to composition is informed by mid-century formalism and conceptualism. His work was recognized by the 2017 Americans for the Arts Public Art Network Year in Review for outstanding public art. Tomezsko’s work has been exhibited at numerous art spaces regionally and nationally, including the Crane Arts, Woodmere Art Museum, the Center For Emerging Visual Artists (CFEVA), and Wexler Gallery in Philadelphia; Lillstreet Art Center in Chicago, IL; the Delaware Contemporary in Wilmington, DE; and Thomas Hunter Projects in New York, NY. He has created several notable public art projects including "14 Movements: A Symphony in Color and Words," a mile-long temporary mural installed in downtown Philadelphia during the 2016 Democratic National Convention; "Look Long and Look Good," a series of 30 paintings currently installed along Main Street in Manayunk; and "Flowering Axes," a mural in the 5th Street Vehicular Tunnel underneath the Ben Franklin Bridge. His work is in the collection of The Wharton...

"Strengths and Weaknesses" is a portrait exploring several elements and strategies that fascinate the artist – notably the performance anxiety induced by simply being an artist, staring down the freight train of art history as it hurtles toward you every time you pick up a brush. Luck? Talent? Maybe. There are signposts and guides in this painting, of course (Cubism! Surrealism! Brancusi! Guston!), but they can clobber you too if you're not careful. Even the phrase "strengths and weaknesses" smacks of compromises and rationalization – deadly to an artist looking to construct their own integral world. "Strengths and Weaknesses" is an acrylic and charcoal on canvas measuring 54" tall by 54" wide. It was included in the artist's solo show "Comedy Cellar" at Freight + Volume Gallery, New York City in July 2018. (See last photograph for an installation view.) From Daniel Gerwin – "Schenck’s color is vibrant, wild, saturated to the point of overheating, and altogether brilliant in the balancing of hues, temperatures, shapes, and color quantities. The paintings have a remarkable coherence for their dizzying juxtaposition of so many small chromatic passages." (Essay: The Anxiety and the Ecstasy) Peter Schenck...

The large abstract painting "PEARL" by Jeffrey Kurland is an acrylic on canvas measuring 64" tall by 78" wide. PEARL is new work from the long hot summer of 2020. Often employing pai...

Street Art, graffiti, bright colors, Gestural Abstraction