Portrait of the Artist

Alex (Alexander) Becker
Painter, Graphic Designer and Artist from Bremen, Germany

Subtle snapshots of life: Alex Becker’s graphically-influenced
paintings reflect the complexity of change and indicate the
dynamic processes behind the signs.

From his early years, charismatic 'artist of living' Alex Becker has
been transforming his personal perceptions into drawings and
paintings. His encounter in the late ’80s and subsequent long-term
cooperative work with German painter and graphic artist Klaus Stall-
knecht left an imprint on and intensified his inclination for graphically-
influenced painting. Both in the course of his college years and con-
comitant to his professional life as a graphic designer, Becker was
striving to expand his artistic repertoire in trans-regional exchange
with artistic personalities (painters, filmmakers/photographers and
theatre actors) throughout the '90s. From 2009, he has been par-
ticipating in Germany-wide exhibitions showing some of his recent
works.

The dynamics and mulitdimensionality of Becker’s manifold sources
of inspiration have left strong imprints on his oeuvre which, next to
his preferential field of work, includes collage, etching, stone sculpt-
ure and mixed media. His vividly coloured and pithy pictures are
recognizably influenced by photography: Expressively minimalist
depictions of motion caught in the moment, like freeze frames ex-
tracted from a sequence, render visible the intenseness of the energy
flow condensed to evocative shape. To the artist himself, the act of
painting is "like dancing", imbued with vigour and emotions — and
thus always genuine. Becker's focussing on the moment itself draws
upon an abundant reservoir of figural motifs, floral structures and
abstract colour compositions which open up a dialogue between
'what has just been' and 'what is just emerging'. His works of art thus
often seem to be part of narrative image sequences, like fragments
of an evolving story.

The artist obtains extraordinary translucent colour effects in his
puttied-over paintings on dark cardboard, the multiple layers of which
evoke an almost haptic materiality. Intrigued by the imaginable behind
the visible surface, he keeps experimenting with varying transparent
coatings that ask to be deciphered step by step.

Please find pictures of his works next to further information
on www.becker-art.net.]

zum deutschen Ausgangstext]

©2012 KK-7