48 x 60 in. "For Helen" oil on canvas - black and white oil painting
By Alexis Portilla
Located in Los Angeles, CA
This is a large monochromatic oil painting on canvas by Alexis Portilla. Color, lines and shapes that resemble pictographs and vessels convey symbolism. Vessels are a recurring theme in Portilla's work as symbolic of the potential for the ability to hold and receive.
Influenced by the emotion of artistic expression in music, poetry and literature, the artist finds bold expression in color, lines and shapes that resemble pictographs, and texture.
For Helen
48x60"
Oil on Canvas
Signed on verso
Alexis Portilla was born in Mexico City in 1965, and has lived in New York since 1970.
He holds an MFA from Columbia University and a BFA from Pratt Institute.
His work can be found in public and corporate collections throughout the United States and abroad, including The New York Public Library, Penn State University, Harvard University,
Warner Brothers Music Group, Pepsi Co., PricewaterhouseCoopers, Norwest Venture
Partners, and Mikasa Corporation. In addition, his work is in hundreds of private collections in the United States, England, France, and Germany.
For more than 20 years, Portilla’s work has been regularly exhibited at prominent venues
throughout the United States.
His work has been the subject of 10 solo exhibitions at established galleries in New York, New Jersey, Atlanta, and Hong Kong. His work has been exhibited in museum group exhibitions at the Grand Rapids Art Museum in Michigan,
Hofstra University Museum in New York, and Monmouth Museum in New Jersey, as well as
numerous gallery group exhibitions in New York, Miami, Chicago, Atlanta, and Philadelphia.
Portilla’s work has received international press attention and has been reviewed in
several publications, including Artnews. He has been a faculty instructor at Columbia University, where he taught printmaking to graduate and postgraduate students.
“New York painter Alexis Portilla[’s] layered compositions deserve serious attention.”
–Art Market Report, Summer 2017
“[Portilla] both builds and excavates his canvases with broad swaths of paint, textured
imprints, and scrapes and scratches, layering lines over drifting expanses of rich color [...]
recalling Basquiat and Twombly-lyrical paintings that hover between pure abstraction and
the evocation of unknown atmospheric spaces.”
–Karen Sundberg, Artsy, December 2014
“Using simple forms and creating swathes of rich texture, Alexis Portilla builds atmospheric abstract paintings that convey a sense of time having passed. Brushy areas of color suggest the indeterminacy of memory, while bold linear forms speak for the present.” Meredith Mendelsohn, Art News magazine review, Feb 2008
Alexis’s work is in public and private collections in the US and internationally.
Education
MFA, Columbia University (1990)
BFA, Pratt Institute
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS (select):
Bryant University, Smithfield, RI
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
The New York Public Library, New York, NY
Penn State University, State College, PA (commissioned work)
SELECTED PRIVATE AND CORPORATE COLLECTIONS
Collection of Padma Lakshmi
Mikasa Corporation, Tokyo, Japan
Pepsi Co., Purchase, NY
PricewaterhouseCoopers, Boston (commissioned work)
Norwest Venture Partners, Palo Alto, CA
Warner Brothers, New York, NY
First Atlantic Capital, New York, NY
Excel, Bermuda
Edwards and Angell, Providence, RI
Meredith and Grew, Boston, MA
Farley White, Boston, MA
Acadian Asset Management, Boston, MA
Proskauer Rose, Boston, MA
New Star Financial, Boston, MA
Cross Harbor Capital, Boston, MA
Weil Gotshal & Manges, Providence, RI
Partner Reinsurance, Pembroke, Bermuda
Hale & Dorr, Washington, DC
Bingham Dana & Gould, Boston, MA
Total System Services, Columbus, OH
Biogen Inc., Cambridge, MA
Millennia, Boston, MA
Renaissance Worldwide, Waltham, MA
Goodwin Proctor & Hoar, Boston, MA and New York, NY
X.L. Pembroke, Bermuda
Odyssey America RE, New York, NY
Greystone Realty Corp., Westport, CT
Limerock Partners, Westport, CT
Michael Page...
Category
21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Abstract Paintings