StudioVisit.LA PROFILING CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS
Abel Alejandre: Graphite Master
By Aimee Santos
April 7, 2016


It’s about the line but it’s about so much more than that.  It’s about community and family and how an image can manifest into a work of art when it lived right beside the world for years without anyone truly seeing.  Abel Alejandre does just that; he makes the invisible, visible through his drawings. 

“I am interested in narratives/vignettes about the discarded    unimportant moments that shape our culture. This is not by design it is just what pulls and tugs my attention.  I feel that when talking   about these throw away moments nobody truly cares but, when I   make art about it people pause.” Said Alejandre a Long Beach Graphite Artist who creates intricate drawings of friends and neighbors in life size dreams of heros and themselves. 

To watch Alejandre create is to watch someone meditate as he rests his hand on a custom attachment created by his own hand to better allow his dreams to come true.  Staring inches from his canvas’ Alejandre commits to every single mark because he believes “It is one of the building blocks of the artist’s DNA. It must be laid down with purpose and a commitment to its surface.” While working Alejandre operates as if in a meditation but surrounds him with the auditory world of podcasts that invite his other senses to expand.

For the past few months Alejandre has been working on new pieces for his upcoming solo show ‘Public Secrets’ at Coagula Curatorial a premiere exhibition space for contemporary art based in Los Angeles’ Chinatown.  ‘Public Secrets’ will open for a reception on April 9, 2016 from 7pm-11pm and runs until May 22, which coincides with Alejandre’s permanent installation at the Expo Line extension of the Los Angeles Metro.  Alejandre’s work will be on permanent display at the Westwood/Rancho Park Metro Station, which will officially open for service May 20th.

To check out more of Abel Alejandre’s work find him through his website www.abelalejandre.com or Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube.

“I am interested in narratives/vignettes about the discarded unimportant moments that shape our culture. ”  – Abel Alejandre

“‘The mark’ is more significant than a fingerprint or signature. It is one of the building blocks of the artist’s DNA. It must be laid down with purpose and a commitment to its surface. It doesn’t matter if the mark is smudged, dragged, pushed, or erased and redrawn over and over. If that is how your work is composed, so be it. My marks, they are calculated and must fuse the selected surface. I think of it as a tattoo that impregnates the surface and should you try and remove it, it will fight. It will be present as a reminder that I once committed to its permanence. ”  – Abel Alejandre

“I suspect that if I had to go through all my stashes throughout the studio, home, office, car, art supply toolbox it would be more like 500 (pencils). Considering that I could easily kill that many on just one drawing it makes me nervous to have so few. I am like an alcoholic who will save, hide, squirrel away bottles/pencils in every corner his life.”  – Abel Alejandre