Biography

Alex Coma graduated from Concordia University in 2014 with a degree in Visual Arts. He then pursued his studies at the Montreal Fine Arts Academy where he received a merit scholarship in 2017. The City of Granby, his hometown, awarded him a grant in September 2018 in recognition of his quest for excellence in art. Alex currently lives in Montreal where his artistic career in gaining momentum.

Last summer, Alex took part in the Art Market Hamptons Fair. More recently, his most recent series of large oil paintings were displayed at the gallery Le Livart. This exhibition earned him very positive feedback in several blogs and magazines, including The Concordian. It also earned him a spot at the AVE Gallery where he is currently holding a solo exhibition. His presence at the AVE Gallery landed him an interview with Éric Clément, published in La Presse. More recently, his work was displayed in two art fairs, one in London and another in Hamburg.

About the artwork

Alex Coma’s work tends to follow the lines of some spiritual art practises that took place in the neo-symbolic movements of the end of the 20th century. Like the German painter and sculptor Joseph Beuys, his work compliments his spiritual journey and discoveries inside the invisible world. Influenced by his personal studies and practice of Eastern and Western mysticism, his work speaks of humanistic concepts relating to the transformation of the self. His main focus is to transform his self through art, by using it as an instrument to deepen his understanding of his unconscious thought processes and locate his self in relation to the universe. In some of his previous artworks, sometimes the actual art installation serves as a tool for introspection (with the help of mirrors symbolically placed to represent different parts of our psyche, for example).

Other times, the artwork can be used as a blueprint to depict his own thought processes and finally, sometimes it depicts specific issues relative to his life. Altogether, these processes speak of the human’s identification with the “self” and ways to realize our infinite potential through art and self-knowledge.

A big parallel can be traced between his work and those of renaissance spiritual works such as Leonardo da Vinci who had the goal of representing deep spiritual concepts hidden through his art. Sacred geometry, archetypal representations are some of the various techniques used by Alex Coma to introduce his concepts to the public eye. Well aware of the power of symbols, he intensively studies numerology and esoteric sciences with the aim of gaining insight on our archetypal universe and to bring this awareness to life through his art.

Photo credit : Alex Coma