* All images used with permission. Please do not distribute without first contacting the artist.
Alex Roulette is a New York based artist who earned a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and an MFA from Columbia University.
Alex explains his work by saying, “Through painting, I depict fictional and occasionally fantastic scenes that explore the blurred sense of time and place within memories. The dreamlike landscapes incorporate familiar elements of suburban life that both stylistically and symbolically represent a quasi-nostalgic ordinariness. The isolation and dislocation of cars, houses, and figures, and the exploration of subtle spatial relationships, recall the hazy state of dreams in which certain details fall into place while others fade away into the unconscious.”
He continues, “I begin each new work by gathering a large collection of source material. I meticulously photograph environments and collect found images such as vintage postcards. In constructing the painting, I use combinations of these reference images, to fabricate an open-ended narrative with the emotion of a memory. Drawing collages of image fragments onto panels before painting them in oil. The resulting paintings are both realistic and subtly uncanny, recalling some idealized vacation and a deeply personal longing for past experiences.”