Today we’d like to introduce you to Alex Kuno.
Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
Frankly, I often wish my story was more “unique” from an interview perspective. I’m a white male who grew up in a small suburb north of the Twin Cities in Minnesota. I was a hypersensitive, sheltered kid and turned to draw in my room as a way to process and escape from my parents’ turbulent marriage. I also regularly escaped into Northern Renaissance religious artwork, Monty Python movies, Kids in the Hall, Star Wars and the Coen Brothers as well as writing my own horrible science fiction stories that I’m grateful no longer exist. As I got older and had to decide what I wanted to do with my life, I knew I had to find a way to return to that feeling of barricading myself in my room and disappearing into my own imagination. I graduated from the University of Minnesota with a BFA in painting and art history, then after my dad died I moved to New York City ten days before 9/11.
In spite of the constant chaos and tragedy, I found myself working as an art handler and administrative assistant in some SoHo and Chelsea art galleries. I loved the “blue collar” aspect of installing and lighting artwork, but after a couple of years, I moved back to Minneapolis and struggled to adjust and find my footing. I was lost in a haze of office cubicles and tech support jobs but I eventually built up the courage to show the anguished doodles I made at work to local galleries and once I started showing and selling consistently enough I quit the office jobs and moved into an art studio in the arts district of Lowertown, Saint Paul to make a go of it. And now that I’ve been living and working out of my studio and painting full time for the past ten years, I’m realizing that I couldn’t escape my little fantasy world if I tried.
Please tell us about your art.
One of the reasons I felt so dislocated after my move back to Minneapolis is that my hometown had changed so palpably since 9/11. Video cameras appeared on street corners, local business suddenly had signs pleading with customers not to bring their guns inside, gas stations gouged customers and patriotism was starting to turn into something else. I was also struck by the language coming from the White House, using these over-simplified phrases like “evildoers” and “bad guys” and “they hate us for our freedoms.” We were being infantilized and urged to shop while images of Abu Ghraib appeared regularly on television. As a response to that and my own personal feelings of anxious rootlessness, I started an improvised series of apocalyptic fairytale illustrations collectively called “The Miscreants of Tiny Town.” It was essentially a combination of Beatrix Potter and Lord of the Flies: Lost, wayward children were left to wander an eternally large and purgatorial landscape and form their own little cults and societies. It was a fairytale series with no discernible morality or arc; a way to process a world that was secretly shifting under our feet. After the election of Trump, however, my work had suddenly and dramatically changed. Those children I had developed for years were literally exploding, their guts sprouting psychedelic organic shapes. They’re in mid-transformation and we’re left to wonder what their final form will be. This past couple of years have been an intense period of experimentation with wide materials and themes, using watercolor, ink, colored pencil, gouache, acrylic and now recently oils. I’ve also incorporated combinations of anatomy, architecture, spirituality and surreal hardcore pornography, trying to once again to find footing in a destabilized world.
Choosing a creative or artistic path comes with many financial challenges. Any advice for those struggling to focus on their artwork due to financial concerns?
One of the myriad frustrating/liberating aspects about this career is that there’s no discernible landmark for “success;” artists have to/get to discover what their own personal equivalents of tenure or corner office or brass ring are for themselves. Saying you want to be “successful” or “famous” is meaningless unless you figure out what the definitions of those words mean to you. So, I have my own fair share of experience with financial struggles but I have to admit that my advice is pretty irrelevant because everyone’s path is their own. I have any general advice, is to relax and focus on making personal and effective work be your primary responsibility before deciding if it would sell. Regardless of your current financial situation, you will be an artist for the rest of your life so just keep practicing and just keep posting them online and using resources available to you. Most importantly, avoid losing your humanity and your empathy when you feel like you aren’t meeting your goals. The only real failure of an artist is lapsing into bitterness and jealousy and cynicism. If you’re sneaking away as often as you can to sketch and develop your artwork while working two part-time jobs to support a growing family, you’re an artist who works two jobs while raising a family and that’s something you can look back on and be proud of when you’re shipping your work off to your next show.
How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
Instagram.com/alexkuno has been a great way to post in-progress work and complain about my creative blocks and uncertainties about a particular project and get immediate reactions from followers about little sketches or experiments. I also post new original work and prints on Etsy.com/shop/AlexKunoArtwork. To see my work in person, I’ll be starting my Fall Season with a two-person show with Stacey Rozich at Talon Gallery’s new space in Portland Oregon at the end of September. Then, in October, I’ll be selling originals and prints as a featured guest artist in the Lowertown Underground Artists gallery in Saint Paul MN for the Saint Paul Art Crawl 10/12-10/14. In November, I’ll have work up at the Helikon Gallery in Colorado, then a show at the Feinkunst Kruger Gallery in Hamburg Germany in December. I’m also excited to announce that I’ll be participating in an exhibit at the Outré Gallery in Australia for their Hieronymous Bosch Tribute Show in March. I also have some of my old “Miscreants of Tiny Town” pieces available through Curly Tale Fine Art in Chicago.
Contact Info:
- Address: 308 Prince St
410
Saint Paul, MN 55101 - Website: alexkunoartwork.com
- Email: alexkuno@gmail.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/alexkuno
- Other: Etsy.com/shop/AlexKunoArtwork
Image Credit:
Alex Kuno
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