Alex Becerra at Weiss Berlin

Artist: Alex Becerra

Exhibition title: Yes Yes Yes & Pink Flamingo

Venue: Weiss Berlin, Berlin, Germany

Date: April 29 – June 4, 2016

Photography: Linus Dessecker, all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Weiss Berlin

We are proud to present Yes Yes Yes & Pink Flamingo, Alex Becerra’s first exhibition with Weiss Berlin. This new body of works comprises paintings, airbrush drawings and sculptural works. Becerra’s viciously grotesque universe clearly locates itself in the history of European, and yes, German, painting. Alex Becerra’s picture planes are heavy with unbounded, massy forms of oil paint. Working in traditional figurative genres, his still lifes, portraits, nudes have been developed from an incessant practice of drawing in various media including graphite, ink, ballpoint pen, or airbrush. The works’ depth and weight has been built up in multiple layers by a process of an adventurous and determined search for the right palette, the right composition, the right line. Paint has been thoughtfully applied and reworked; the airbrush gun was operated with masterly tenderness and expertise.

In its intensification of modernist tropes the group of paintings in Yes Yes Yes & Pink Flamingo brings expressive gesture and emphatic materiality to the discipline of painting along with references to macho clichés and occasional obscenities. Beer bottle sculptures are scattered about illustrations of everyday objects, female genitalia, auto repair shops, and guns. At the same time, Becerra’s work cannot help but display sensitivity, vulnerability, intimacy, and desire. Portrayed in a lusciously green forest, Fletch, Becerra’s white German shepherd, keeps the shady nocturnal figures depicted in the other works company.

Alex Becerra (*1989 in Piru, California) lives and works in Los Angeles. His work has been shown at ltd los angeles; Artist Curated Projects, Los Angeles and at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles and has been covered in the Los Angeles Times, Frieze, Zoo Magazine, and Modern Painters. Alex Becerra plays in the band Los Tres Pericos and will be giving tattoos based on his drawings on the opening weekend of the show.

Yes Yes Yes & Pink Flamingo is the second exhibition at Weiss Berlin. The gallery shows contemporary art, predominantly by artists living and working in Los Angeles and New York. Among the artists shown by the the gallery are Elif Erkan, Alex Becerra, Buck Ellison, Rosha Yaghmai, Keith Mayerson, Evan Nesbit, and Celeste Dupuy-Spencer.

*In context of the exhibition, Alex Becerra will offer black and white tattoos based on his drawings for free. For more information or appointments, please contact Weiss Berlin. Both walk-ins and appointments are welcome.