SAN BENITO – The Narciso Martinez Cultural Arts Center will present UTRGV art professor Alejandro Macias in an art exhibit, “The Mark Between.”
Alejandro was born and raised in Brownsville.
Macias is a lifelong resident of the Rio Grande Valley.
He received his formal training earning his bachelor of arts in art from the University of Texas at Brownsville in 2008. In 2012, he received his master of fine arts in 2-D Studio Art from The University of Texas-Pan American.
In 2016, he was accepted to and attended the prestigious Vermont Studio Center as an artist in residence and was hosted alongside visual artists and writers from across the world.
In the span of his 11-year career as a visual artist, Macias has exhibited throughout Texas.
Galleries and venues include: Mexic-Arte Museum in Austin, Proper Printshop in El Paso, Brickhaus Collective in Denton, K Space Contemporary in Corpus Christi and 3rd Space Art Gallery in San Antonio.
He has exhibited at The Foundry Art Centre in St. Charles, Missouri, and AIR Gallery in New York.
Macias is an active member in his community and has participated in many events as workshop artist, curator, juror and guest speaker, and was recently nominated and voted a board member of The Brownsville Museum of Fine Arts.
Macias holds the rank of Lecturer I at The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley where he teaches drawing, painting and design.
Whether it is through personal experience, media and artistic exposure, human form has directly informed Macias work.
For the past 11 years, he has leaned toward figurative work due to his struggle with identity, not just in terms of art, but what it means to be human and Mexican-American living in a border town.
He is interested in character, persona and the aesthetic design that correlates with those characteristics.
He typically selects elements of design that will connect to heritage and social concerns.
The title of the exhibition, The Mark Between,” refers to the natural division that is the Rio Grande, and how it creates an internal conflict with his personal and artistic identity.
“I often do not feel ‘Mexican or ‘American.’ I am somewhere in-between,” he said.
“My work chronicles my analysis of identity as a whole and my use of traditional and liberating mark-making.”
WHO: Alejandro Macías, UTRGV art professor
WHAT: Art Exhibit: “The Mark Between”
WHEN: Thursday, April 8, 6–8 p.m.
WHERE:
Narciso Martinez Cultural Arts Center 225 E. Stenger
