Andrew Alba riffs on neo-expressionist visual history with raw, unfiltered paintings that resist the intellectualization of art via frank depictions of labor.
(September 2023) Art is labor, and nowhere is this more apparent than Andrew Alba’s newest show Lifted Labor, which features roughly-hewn and boldly-colored paintings created with construction materials instead of traditional artistic media. The descendant of Mexican migrant workers and a construction worker himself, Alba is keenly aware of the politics of hard labor—and its effects on the body. “Alba’s artistic approach is based on his experience growing up in Salt Lake City, Utah as a descendant of Mexican migrant workers. Through his use of non-traditional materials collected from his day job in construction, Alba communicates anti-establishment narratives to the working class,” says Kelly Carper, the curator of Lifted Labor. “Alba’s work is raw, anti-academic, and frank in its depiction of contemporary politics and society.” The solo exhibition opens with a reception at form & concept on Friday, September 29, 5-7 PM.
“Lifted Labor is a progression and continuum of Weighted Home, my previous body of work. Weighted Home established a deep, solemn connection between the soul of my stylized figures and their environment,” says Alba. “In this new exhibition, I complicate this paradigm by elevating my figures and the abstract labor they have come to represent.” Historically, Alba’s egalitarian artistic approach has boldly confronted contemporary issues surrounding politics and labor. His confrontational style attracted the attention of Ogden Contemporary Arts, where Alba met Carper. The art center’s inaugural exhibition featured Alba’s artwork, ushering the Salt Lake City-based artist onto the national art stage.
However, Lifted Labor is a clear departure from Alba’s earlier work, featuring deeply personal paintings laden with magical realism that illustrate the interdependent relationship between humans and their environment. Clues suggestive of Alba’s shift toward magical realism first appeared in Weighted Home, an exhibition at Froelick Gallery that featured Alba’s signature figures grounded and integrated into a dreamlike, earthly environment. Drawing from Alba’s reflections on his body as a vessel for history, ancestry and emotion, the artist’s expressive brushwork and intense color palette render a new kind of figure in Lifted Labor. Alba reflects on humanity through a spiritual lens, surfacing and visualizing the human soul.