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Alex Kanevsky featured in the Huffington Post
March 29, 2013
March 26, 2013 Huffington Post Anyone can tell you who's already made it, but HuffPost Arts & Culture's On Our Radar series is here to tell you who's about to blow up -- and, in some cases, go pop.
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Woodmere show is more a Doris Staffel-and-friends tribute – Alex Kanevsky
November 23, 2012
August 2012 The Philadelphia Inquirer Article by Edward Sozanski The other major component of Kanevsky's work is multiple vision, drawings that are obsessive re-drawings that imply movement and a search for the perfect line.
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Painter Alex Kanevsky captures movement and time’s constant flow in canvases that resist adherence to a single moment, or even a single reading. Like the unreliable nature of memory and the imprecise atmosphere of poetry, Kanevsky’s multilayered works provide more questions than answers. These paintings combine abstraction and figuration in layered, painterly compositions in which the artist strives to convey his own particular view of the world with clarity.
Kanevsky describes himself as a slow painter who nevertheless works quickly to maintain a fresh approach to the canvas. His process of painting, rubbing out, and painting over was developed over many years and holds the key to the emotional richness of his work. This creates a kind of palimpsest, in which past iterations and experimentations remain visible beneath the topmost layer of paint. Though Kanevsky paints both from life and from photographs, he relishes most the kinetic energy of live models. He often works with the same models for years at a time, developing a strong sense of their individual form and motion. The figure is central to Kanevsky’s work. They inhabit mysterious landscapes and ambiguous architecture, often composed of wide swaths of color that contain echoes of color field painting. Most often, he focuses on the nude, creating soft, tactile bodies in luscious flesh tones.
Kanevsky was born in Russia in 1963, where he studied theoretical mathematics at Vilnius University in Lithuania before coming to the United States in the early 1980s. He settled in Philadelphia and began painting classes at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) in 1989. After receiving a Pew Fellowship in 1997, Kanevsky was able to devote himself to painting full time, and from 2002 to 2017, he served as an adjunct painting instructor at PAFA. He was awarded the Ballinglen Arts Foundation residency in Ireland and has served as a judge at many juried exhibitions worldwide. The artist has had over twenty solo shows, and has exhibited his work throughout the United States, Canada, France, Italy, United Kingdom, Spain, and Ireland. He lives and works in New Hampshire.
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2022 Postcards from a Closet, Hollis Taggart, New York
2020 Dolby Chadwick Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2019 Alex Kanevsky: Liberation and Disorientation, Hollis Taggart Galleries, New York, NY
2018 Galerie Guido Romero Pierini, Paris, France
2017 Some Paintings in No Particular Order, Hollis Taggart Galleries, New York, NY
2016 Foster Gallery, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA
2015 Unstable Equilibrium, Dolby Chadwick Gallery, San Fransisco, CA
2015 Hollis Taggart Galleries, New York, NY
2014 Beautiful and Profound Paintings, J. Cacciola Gallery, New York, NY
2014 Alex Kanevsky, Scarfone/Hartly Gallery at University of Tampa, FL
2013 The Fox and The Hedgehog, Dolby Chadwick Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2012 Barbara Frigerio Contemporary Art, Milan, Italy
2012 Woodmere Museum, Philadelphia, PA
2012 Lux Art Institute, Encinitas, CA
2011 J. Cacciola Gallery, New York, NY
2010 Dolby Chadwick Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2009 J. Cacciola Gallery, New York, NY
2008 Rosenfeld Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2007 J. Cacciola Gallery, New York, NY
2006 Gallerie de Bellefeuille, Montreal, Canada
2005 Dolby Chadwick Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2004 Short Focus Paintings, Somerville Manning Gallery, Greenville, DE
2004 Rosenfeld Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2003 Dolby Chadwick Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2003 J. Cacciola Galleries, New York, NY
2002 Rosenfeld Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2001 Dolby Chadwick Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2000 Philadelphia Art Alliance, Philadelphia, PA
1998 Rosenfeld Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1997 Merrimack College, Andover, MA
1995 Rosenfeld Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Selected Group Exhibitions
2023 Mímesis: Representational Art 2023, Museu Europeu d’Art Modern (MEAM), Barcelona, Spain
2022 Beyond the Line, Dolby Chadwick Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2021 Tasting Menu, Barnes Art Center, Hopewell Junction, NY
2021 Eros, tu cuerpo como excusa, Museo Europeo de Arte Moderno, Barcelona, Spain
2020 Figure as Form, Hollis Taggart Gallery, New York, NY
2019 SHIFT, Susquehanna Art Museum, Harrisburg, PA
2018 The Figure: The Indicative and the Allusive, The Delaware Contemporary, Wilmington, DE
2018 Disrupted Realism, Stanek Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2018 Five at Nine, Hollis Taggart Gallery, New York, NY
2017 Ethics of Depiction, Oakland University Art Gallery, Rochester, MI
2017 A More Perfect Union? Power, Sex, and Race in the Representation of Couples, Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, PA
2016 More Than Your Selfie, New Museum, Los Gatos, CA
2015 The More The Merrier, Cerulean Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2013 Body Politic, National Arts Club, New York, NY
2013 The Philadelphia Story, Asheville Art Museum, Asheville, NC
2012 Annual Show, Royal Society of British Artists, London, UK
2011 Equus – The Art of the Horse, Somerville Manning Gallery, Greenville, DE
2011 Being Body / Exhibited Bodies, Barbara Frigerio Gallery, Milan, Italy
2010 Remnants, Fuse Gallery, New York, NY
2009 Five Artists of Accomplishment from PAFA, Somerville Manning Gallery, Greenville, DE
2009 The Morbid Anatomy Cabinet, Barrister’s Gallery, New Orleans, LA
2008 Images from North Mayo, Ballinglen Arts Foundation, Ballycastle, Ireland
2007 True Love Always, Angles Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
2004 Pittura e fotografia dal punto di vista dell’occhio modern, Castell Welsberg, Italy
1999 The Edge of Vision, The Edge of Sight, Montserrat College of Art, Beverly, MA
1997 Contemporary Landscape, The Philip & Muriel Berman Museum of Art – Ursinius College, Collegeville, PA
1994 Double Exposure, Pleiades Gallery, New York, NY
Selected Awards and Honors
2012 Art Residency, Lux Art Institute, Encinitas, CA, USA
2008 Painting Fellowship, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts
2007 Painting Residency, Eagle Hill Foundation, Steuben, ME
2006 Painting Fellowship, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts
2004 Painting Fellowship, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts
2003 Grant for Painting, Franz and Virginia Bader Fund
2003 Residency Fellowship, The Ballinglen Arts Foundation, Ireland
2002 Painting Fellowship, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts
1997 Painting Fellowship, Pew Fellowship in the Arts
1994 Painting Fellowship, Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT
1993 Pennsylvania Governor’s Award for Painting
1993 Mary Townsend & William Clarke Mason Memorial Prize for Sculpture
1992 William Emlen Cresson Memorial Travel Scholarship
1992 Mabel Wilson Woodrow Memorial Award
1992 Pearson Memorial Prize for Painting
Selected Public Collections
Ballinglen Museum of Art, Ballycastle, Ireland
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, de Young & Legion of Honor, San Francisco
Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, PA
Education
1989 – 93 Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA
1980 – 83 Vilnius University, Vilnius, Lithuania
