Alex Podesta – Recent Work
In all of my recent work I have culled the rich fantasies, daydreams, misconceptions and experiences of childhood and re-contextualized them through the filters of adulthood, experience and education. This effort has been made in an attempt to plumb the depths of the creative and comprehensive naiveté of youth; to illustrate, in engaging and serio-comic ways, the role of fantasy, “othering” and conflict in nascent self-awareness; and, through the time honored tradition of solipsistic navel gazing, to pick gently at the loose thread of wistful escapism inherent in a quiet, down hill slide into maturity.
The central character in my works is usually found lost in a reverie of industriousness, paired with doppelganger or other machinations of his childish imagination. In concert, these figures toil at understanding, through experimentation or illustration, existential perplexities ranging from possibly surmountable commonplaces – e.g. What is loneliness and how is it combated? – To metaphysical impossibilities – e.g. Who is this god dude I've heard about? And is he a hero? Like Superman? Or soldiers? Or knights on horseback? And what does hero mean anyway? Of course, no traction will ever be gained with these pursuits. These boys and toys and bunny/man chimera will be forever locked in the Sisyphean toil of misapplication, miscomprehension and misunderstanding.
Bio
Alex Podesta was born in North Carolina and got taller in Virginia. As an adult, he became a life-long resident of New Orleans. His more formative studies took place at the Governor’s Magnate School for the Arts, Virginia Commonwealth University and the University of New Orleans, where he earned an MFA in 2007.
www.alexpodesta.com
