Brian Gross Fine Art is pleased to announce the opening of Peter Alexander: DEEP DIVE, on Thursday, September 9th. On view will be nine paintings made of oil, acrylic, and resin on aluminum exploring the luminous properties of light as seen through water. A quintessentially California artist, Peter Alexander (1939–2020) was associated throughout his career with the Light and Space movement in Los Angeles, beginning in the 1960s, and garnered an international acclaim for his sculptures, paintings, and installations investigating the properties of light and color. The exhibition will be on view through November 6, 2021.
Sumptuous in their rich tonalities, Peter Alexander’s paintings on metal deliver an immersive experience of color. In waterscapes like Pozo (2005, 40 × 60 inches), Espita (2006, 24 × 24 inches) and the monumental Claire (2006, 96 × 96 inches), Alexander employed color to create the sublime refractions of sunlight seen through depths of water. Variously made by building up layers of oil, acrylic, metal flake, and resin on aluminum panels, Alexander modulated the densities of tone and gesture to evoke the sensation of arrested fluid movement.
Peter Alexander was born in Los Angeles in 1939 and received his BFA and MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles. In 2011, he was included in the Pacific Standard Time exhibitions, Phenomenal: California Light and Space at the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, and Pacific Standard Time: Crosscurrents in L.A. Paintings and Sculpture 1945–1970 at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. In 2018, his work was included in the exhibition Endless Summer at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Peter Alexander died in 2020.
Peter Alexander’s work has been widely exhibited throughout the United States and abroad, and can be found in numerous public collections, including: The Museum of Modern Art, NY; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NY; National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, CA; San Jose Museum of Art, CA; Oakland Museum of California; Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University, CA; Anderson Collection at Stanford University, CA; and many others.
This is Brian Gross Fine Art’s ninth exhibition of the works of Peter Alexander.