Panels “depict the legs of travelers headed to their destinations: a business professional with her rolling briefcase, a parent with a stroller, and a hummingbird in flight,” creating “story of place through the act of commuting.” His gallery work focuses around issues of machismo and masculinity and he uses art “as a means to acknowledge and process what he confesses to be ‘past insecurities, insults, and painful memories.’”Īlejandre created murals for the 1984 Olympic Games and in 2005 curated and staged an exhibition of Mexican and American artists on the border fence in Mexicali/Calexico border. His twelve panels, “Panoramas,” are displayed at the Rancho Park/Westwood station. In 2013, Alejandre was announced as one of eight grantee artists whose art would be installed at one of the Los Angeles Metro stations along the new Expo line that runs from downtown Los Angeles to Santa Monica beach. A single piece of art can take over 5 months to complete, with the artist working 10 to 12 hours a day, and can use over 700 pencils. His trademark crosshatching is created by gessoing and sanding the surface of the canvas or panels and then beginning work with pencil.

Alejandre grew up in the Long Beach area of Southern California and attended Long Beach City College, graduating with an Associate of Arts degree.Īfter painting in color for 25 years, Alejandre began working in black and white, becoming completely focused on creating monochromatic works. In 1975, when he was 7, the family immigrated to the United States via Tijuana where he encountered running water, electricity, and television for the first time. As a young child he worked in the cotton fields to earn money for his family. His monumental My Fathers, which is in the permanent collection at the National Museum of Mexican Art, in Chicago, IL, was created by the latter method.Ībel Alejandre was born in Apatzingán, Michoacán, Mexico. He also creates woodblock prints using both a giant press he built himself and by hand printing. Alejandre's series of twelve panels, 'Panoramas,' is featured at the Los Angeles Metro Rancho Park/Westwood station. Working primarily in pencil, Alejandre creates intricately cross-hatched drawings that can take months to complete. Abel Alejandre (1968, Michoacán, Mexico) is a Mexican-born, United States-based hyperrealist artist, best known for his explorations of masculinity and vulnerability.

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