Steven Alexander is an American artist known for abstract paintings defined by luminous color, sensuous surfaces, and iconic configurations. For more than fifty years, he has dedicated himself to exploring the language of abstraction and its potential for emotional resonance and historical continuity. Building upon the existential visual traditions of artists like Mark Rothko, Piet Mondrian, and Giorgio Morandi, Alexander constructs painterly fields of radiant color and pared-down geometry. His work engages viewers through quiet intensity, proposing color as presence and inviting meditative encounters with the psyche and senses. As critic Peter Frank wrote, “You can taste certain of these paintings; you can hear others. And even with your hands behind your back, you can feel them all.”
Born in 1953 in west Texas, Alexander spent his formative years absorbing the atmosphere and openness of the southwestern plains. He earned his BFA at Austin College under early mentor Vernon Fisher and later received an MFA in painting from Columbia University, where he studied with Richard Pousette-Dart, Bruce Boice, and Dore Ashton. Alexander moved to New York in 1975 and quickly became active in the city’s contemporary art community, both as an artist and contributor to its institutional development.
His paintings have reinvented and extended the vocabulary of painterly reductive abstraction. They have been shown alongside major forebears such as John Opper and Dan Christensen, and exhibited in more than one hundred solo and group shows in cities including New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Santa Fe, Dallas, Atlanta, Miami, Cologne, Florence, and São Paulo. Recent solo exhibitions include Spanierman Modern and David Findlay Jr Gallery in New York.
Alexander’s work is held in numerous public and private collections internationally. He is an elected member of the American Abstract Artists group (est. 1936) and a recipient of grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation and the Belin Foundation. His residencies include PS1 Contemporary Art Center (now MoMA PS1), the Ballinglen Arts Foundation in Ireland, and Studio Art Centers International in Florence.
In addition to his painting practice, Alexander has made lasting contributions as a writer, curator, designer, and musician. He edited and designed Rooms: PS1, the catalog for the inaugural exhibition at PS1, and as its first program coordinator, he helped realize early projects by Robert Barry, Dan Graham, and Elyn Zimmerman. He has written critically about numerous modern and contemporary artists and co-created Mormaço, a book of poems by Brazilian poet Lêdo Ivo paired with 42 works on paper by Alexander.
He was also active in New York’s Downtown music scene from 1978 to 1983, collaborating with artists such as John Cale, Arthur Baker, and Chandra Oppenheim. He performed at Carnegie Hall in “The First Concert of the ’80s” and released original compositions during that period. He has taught painting and visual arts at Marywood University and served as visiting artist at Bowdoin College, Parsons School of Design, and Studio Art Centers International.
Today, Steven Alexander lives and works in the hills of eastern Pennsylvania with his spouse, the artist Laura Duerwald.