In an era during which personal and collective identities are increasingly mutable, Alex Leon Sherker focuses on the role of tattoo imagery as a contemporary means of identity formation. Drawing on Sherker’s ongoing investigations into hybridized tattoo imagery, the exhibition transforms the gallery into an immersive environment in which symbols, icons, and illustrations are presented on large-scale panels. These surfaces — covered with hand-applied murals, designs conceived by Sherker and executed by an assistant artist (à la Sol LeWitt), and prefabricated vinyl applications — create a visually charged space that prompts both direct engagement and subconscious contemplation.
Visitors enter a space where identity is not fixed but shaped by ongoing negotiation. Within these structures, viewers are asked: How much of our identity do we retain? And how much do we surrender to industry, artificial intelligence, and simulated realities?
Alex Sherker
Originally born and raised in NYC, Alex Sherker is a sculptor, painter, writer, and tattoo artist currently living in central Texas. Sherker’s work layers, melds, and juxtaposes images, artifacts, and archetypes from across the spectrum of the human experience. Using both familiar icons and transcendent touchstones, Sherker’s images and objects seek a tangible liminal merger between the seen and unseen, the known and unknown, the conscious and the unconscious, delivered with a familiar and even humorous accessibility.