Los Angeles based artist Jason Shawn Alexander pushes the emotional boundaries of the painted canvas with a vision that is jarringly surreal yet startling raw and candid. While his subjects are contemporary and his style utterly distinct, the Tennessee native’s work remains firmly rooted in the traditions of figuration.

“Figurative work gives me something more literal to relate to than pure abstraction. And the beauty of expressionism is that it can be so much more emotional… I want to try to capture… not the visual look of it, but to capture that one emotional spark that you get, as best as I can, so it hits every time you see the painting.”

Painterly, gestural, and textural, each of Alexander’s paintings feature one scrupulously rendered subject set against an abstractly constructed background. The result is a disarming psychological snapshot, an arresting narrative encased in a singular timeless image.

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