Alex Gardner (b. 1987, Los Angeles, CA) lives and works in Long Beach, CA. The artist received his BFA from California State University in Long Beach in 2011. Solo exhibitions include Long Beach Museum of Art (Long Beach, CA), Loyal (Stockholm), Koenig (Berlin), The Hole (New York), SCAD Museum of Art (Savannah, GA), New Image Art Gallery (Los Angeles). His work is included in the public collections of Museo Jumex (Mexico City), Institute of Contemporary Art Miami (Miami) and X Museum (Beijing). Gardner’s solo exhibition “We All Exist Right Now” is on view at the Long Beach Museum of Art through May 1, 2022.

Alex Gardner paints luminous figures, with, as of this date, no faces, in a delicately colored expanse. You may see this as a grim situation, being that you are, assumedly, reliant on your own features. But these figures are not to be pitied for their condition. While you may think it a disadvantage to be faceless, recall that much of life doesn’t require a mouth. Typically, speech will not alter the course of nature or institutions. As for a nose, getting lost in a blue-grey barrenness isn’t a matter of odor. Nor is being pursued by someone who wishes you harm. And, given that seeing distorts the thing being regarded, one could posit that blindness is more accurate than vision.

Free of the obligations entailed by lips, Gardner’s characters are pure, elegant and frightening—limbs in love, torsos in distress. They are human nature, unobscured by superficial particularities, slogans, or grimaces. We spend so much time trying to bend ourselves into a distinguished shape, to be recognizable. This can be a lovely process. But it’s naive to think that Alex, or anyone else, needs to know who you are to recognize what you are.

Solo exhibitions

2022
Drawing No Conclusions, Mine Project, Hong Kong

2021
We All Exist Right Now, Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach, CA
Happy To Be Here, Loyal, Stockholn, Sweden
Free-For-All, König, Berlin, Germany

2020
Blues, The Hole, New York, NY

2019
Guest Room, SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, GA
Snooze Button, Mine Project, Hong Kong
Amnesia, Carl Kostyál Gallery, London, United Kingdom

2017
RomCom, The Hole, New York, NY

2016
Laugh Now Cry Now, New Image Art, West Hollywood, CA

2015
What is your reason for visiting?, The Dot Project, London, United Kingdom

Group exhibitions

2023
You Need A Mango To Give A Mango, New Image Art, Los Angeles, CA

2022
Psychic Distance: Powers of Observing Relationships, Loyal, Stockholm, Sweden
New Construction, The Hole, Los Angeles, CA

2021
Stockholm Sessions, Carl Kostyál Gallery, Stockholm, Sweden

2019
The Gaze, James Fuentes Gallery, New York, NY
Malmö Sessions, Carl Kostyál Gallery, Malmö, Sweden

2018
Body, Curtain, Advance, Loyal, Stockholm, Sweden
GDPR: Group Display of Paintings and Renderings, Signal, Brooklyn, NY
Dallas Art Fair, The Hole, Dallas, TX
ALAC, The Hole, Los Angeles, CA
Zona Maco, The Hole, Mexico City, Mexico

2017
The Hole, Expo Chicago, Chicago, IL
Lil Swim, The Luggage Room, San Francisco, CA
New Image Art, VOLTA NY, New York, NY

2016
Hawaii Swim 5.0, New Image Art, West Hollywood, CA
Winter Invitational, Jonathan LeVine Projects, New York, NY

2015
Amor Fati, 111 Minna Gallery, San Francisco, CA