Newest Project:
The Margins
Inspired by the inclusive decadence of the Disco era, and the idea of a “Gesamtkunstwerk,” or a “total work of art”, Alex Macon’s thesis is a Party in The Margins. Creating a safe space for his marginalized friends and all others like them to exist safely and enjoy themselves unabashedly. Why would you wanna be mainstream? The Margins are where the party’s at.
The New classic.
The New Classic is a photographic exploration into camp, mockery, and color through 15 reimagined “masterpieces” painted by a plethora of iconic painters. In making campy, lurid reimaginings of these works, new works are created, with new cultural interpretations and connotations. Compositionally, these works will be similarly arranged and structured. But through subversive styling and staging, these new reimagined works will tell a story of the now, shedding the isolated and restricted nature of the past. By also implementing my vivid, maximalistic, and provocative style to these new creations, a sense of literal and metaphorical vibrancy and effervescence will be employed, and the former palette derived in nature will be destroyed. Click on my face to see more.
Idfwk:A Proto-thesis.
I Don't Fuck with Kids is a four-part video series inspired by the educational and often vital passing down of knowledge to children through public broadcast television; teaching them about the world that they live in. In this series I am combating my disdain with children by attempting to educate a fictional audience of children. The children within this audience are children of color, future queer kids, and those exiled by society from a young age due to handicap or religious upbringing. Click Officer Oinky to see more.
Notes on Jordan.
Inspired by the colorful ambivalence of childhood, Notes on Jordan is a collection of mixed media collage work on plywood panel. Full of references to turn of the century toys and pop culture and the artist’s own history, the works in this collection are brash, provocative, and full of humor. Each piece, however, is dedicated to an unsung Black hero, with the panel’s composition alluding to the icon’s story. From the figures that desegregated industries to ground-breaking musicians, each of the subjects have provided inspiration through these unsettling times. The series is meant to be fun and light-hearted to the core, offering the viewer new knowledge and a smile. Click J. Edgar Hoover to see more.
Projects + Exhibitions
happyface.
happyface. is the first solo exhibition for Alex Macon. Being a black man is hard. Being a black man with mental illness in America is crippling. To bring light to this deeply marginalized subgroup, 30 commanding, loud, and deeply personal pieces were created, ranging from remarkable photography to hand-embroidered work, to interactive sculptures and installations. The maximalistic use of orange contrasts the “blue mood” that comes with depression. Click Malik to see more.
ZODIAC.
ZODIAC is a mixed media collection where the 12 main astrological signs and their connected behaviors are showcased in disjointed and abnormal diptychs.The collection in whole is about the dualities between permanency and change. The pieces are personal to the artist, used as a therapeutic and investigatory tools to discover why relationships are temporary in nature, with references to the signs and his parents, former friends, and lost loved ones. Click Luis to see more.
Dreamland.
Dreamland is a campy case study in American colloquial language and the lack of sincerity in our speech. This lack of sincerity is the main topic of the visual playground created in this lurid yet educational book. The expressions used range from odd idioms to strange hyperboles and mistruths meant to keep us in line. This universe being creating through photographs and digital pieces will leave viewers wondering what’s real and what’s fake. Click Clay to see more.
black don’t matter.
black don’t matter. is the first part of an archival photographic study on the African Diaspora in America. The project is full of 55 skillfully curated photographs that tell the chronological story of African people as they are forced to make their way to America. In parallel with the text, the images highlight the Black figures in the image with dynamic, brightly tinted, angular overlays to contrast with their veiled position in American society at the time. As the reader navigates through the book, the overlays change in hue signifying the spectrum of colors related to the concept of being colored in a white society. Click on Cheryl Browne to see more.
Click to see selected excerpts.
The Divine Vibrancy.
The Divine Vibrancy is the second part of an archival photographic study on the African Diaspora in America, with the focus shifting from the journey to their impact. The reader is shown a modern take on the notion of being colored, being greeted with vivid documentation of the status of Blacks in our country. Paired perfectly with archived posts from Twitter, the images are collaged onto brightly hued pages, echoing the overlaid design over the tweets. The book is supplemental of black don’t matter.
Click on Whoopi to see selected excerpts.
Softie.
Softie is a collection of portraits and still-lives that showcase, highlight, and subvert the notions of masculinity within our global society. With the help of 50 different men and genderless individuals of all ages, a lurid yet raw world has been created to depict all the emotions, stresses, privileges, and metaphysical barriers that come with being a man. Within a stringent color palette, these images all play together to shift our relationships between colors and gender performance. All of this is an effort to expose the virulent nature of divisions and the value of authenticity.
This project is in-progress.