O'Born Contemporary

Exhibition

Beyond The Fall

Alex Fischer, Solo Exhibition

February 4 – March 10, 2012

Opening Reception: Friday, February 3, 6 – 9 PM

Listing.pdf

statement

Artists must take responsibility for representing the time in which they live.

The images of Beyond The Fall come from what has become the predominant first-world interface: The personal computer and internet capable device is now the primary filter by which broad swaths of people interact and know themselves. These technologies have the ability to snake our attentions, beliefs and desires, influencing cognition and our experience of the world.

In order to represent these paradigm shifts, Alex Fischer reifies the low-culture of individualistic habits and persuasions to be in dialogue with the ripe philosophy of high art. His chosen medium of digital collage perfectly compliments his artistic process, by which he paints together images from a collection of digital sources. Each piece concedes to multiple interpretations due to Fischer's choice to obscure the visual space of the image into near abstraction. The narratives encompass characters, scenes, and symbols with all of their ambiguity, insight, and metaphysical baggage on display. The content originates from their adaptations to and the impact of this current age.

about the artist

Alex Fischer (b.1986, Walkerton, ON) is an artist and empiricist living and working in Toronto, Canada. A sociologist of internet culture, Fischer mediates the visual and theoretical philosophies, which can be accessed through contemporary technology. This extraction and the resulting dissemination are essential to his approach to art-making, which is at once reactionary and projective. He composes his figures and landscapes by digitally assembling visual and conceptual sources in order to explore the syncretic effect of the digital-age.

Fischer's work has been featured in Backflash, Beautiful Decay and Rojo. He is the creator, editor and juror of Sync Resist, released in 2009 through York University. In 2010, Fischer produced his first artist book, Smarter Today published by O'Born Contemporary and Wassenaar.

Fischer graduated from York University with a BFA, honours in visual arts. His work is featured in noted private and corporate collections. Fischer is represented by O'Born Contemporary.

Alex Fischer, Straw Man, 2012
Alex Fischer, Purple Jesus, 2011
Alex Fischer, Bluenose, 2011