Art Chowder November | December, Issue 18 | Page 24

T
here are over 10,000 people
in “Alexander’s World” — tiny
human figures going about their
daily lives. One might wonder
whether he makes an image of
himself in each of his paintings,
but the fact is he is everything
in his paintings. It’s well that he
views recording modern culture
as his mission, his calling, his
personal responsibility … because
he genuinely seems to like it.
His style has been described
as “hyperrealistic,” wherein it
rides a line of photorealism and
artistic rendering, containing so
much detail that sometimes he
has to use a fine-tipped pen or
one-haired brush. When he was
younger he became interested in
photographs from the end of the
Qing Dynasty (the last dynasty
of China, 1644-1912), but found
there was a discrepancy between
the images and the ideas he had in
his head of what life looked like
at the time. “What else can I do as
an artist?” he thought to himself,
“what more?” Probably many
artists wonder this same thing at
some point. Alexander has an an-
swer, and I think I understood it:
cameras may be accurate, but they
are not very trustworthy. They can
only record what can be seen. In
contrast, an artist like Alexander
can record what he feels about a
scene on an emotional level. A
camera is made to be impartial,
but this is in fact the strength of
an artist — special attention can
be given here and there. A ma-
chine has a function. An artist has
a will. Alexander’s paintings are
in many ways quite photorealistic,
but the feeling is not just project-
ed on by the audience; it is also
painted in by the artist.
24
ART CHOWDER MAGAZINE