Alexander Kvares was born 48 years ago in Kyiv, Ukraine (at the time Kiev, USSR). In 1986, the worst nuclear disaster in history occurred just 60 miles away, in Chernobyl....
Alexander Kvares was born 48 years ago in Kyiv, Ukraine (at the time Kiev, USSR). In 1986, the worst nuclear disaster in history occurred just 60 miles away, in Chernobyl. Later the same year, 11-year-old Alex was hospitalized/quarantined for a month with hepatitis. Despite having an interest in art and having grown up in a family of artists, it is during his month of isolation that he began drawing. Mostly as a means of escaping boredom and loneliness, as well as processing/healing.
The reason those early, formative experiences are highlighted here is due to some obvious parallels to recent events (quarantine/sickness, war/disaster in Ukraine). Over time drawing became a habit and a regular practice, especially in times of uncertainty or crisis.
In 1990, the Kvares family left the Soviet Union and spent the next six months in cheap hotels in Austria and then Italy -- yet more isolation, and a lot of drawing. This time obsessive, loosely organized, spider-web-like abstraction. An odd choice for a 14-year-old, but perhaps an instinctual way of processing the lack of home, cultural grounding, or daily structure. Who knows, but these are the roots of his art practice.
Then there were years spent in the suburbs of Kansas City, dropping out of high school, going to college at KU, grad school in Austin, Texas, a decade of solo art making, collaborations and teaching in Atlanta and finally in 2012, moving to Brooklyn.
Since then, a decade of being a parent, an artist, and a teacher. And lots and lots of drawing, and also a little AI