{"id":25652,"date":"2024-10-31T15:56:54","date_gmt":"2024-10-31T19:56:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/?p=25652"},"modified":"2024-11-01T09:34:50","modified_gmt":"2024-11-01T13:34:50","slug":"willie-alexander-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/2024\/10\/31\/willie-alexander-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Willie Alexander\u2019s Glitter And Hot Pink Abstractions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Friends and admirers crowded into Gloucester\u2019s Jane Deering Gallery<\/a> a few weeks back for the opening reception of Willie Alexander\u2019s exhibition \u201cGoya\u2019s head found on Half Moon Beach,\u201d which runs from Oct. 11 to Nov. 3, 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alexander, who’s a friend of ours, is best known as the Godfather of Boston Punk\u2014now in his 80s and still crooning behind his keyboard in glam eyeliner and with a shock of white hair. Over the years he\u2019s performed with The Lost, The Bagatelle, Grass Menagerie with Doug Yule, Nonie\u2019s Blues, Radio Hearts, a zombie Velvet Underground with Yule (after Lou Reed, John Cale and Sterling Morrison had left the band), his namesake Willie Alexander and the Boom Boom Band, the Persistence of Memory Orchestra, Fish Eye Brothers, the Raztones, the Fishtones, solo projects, and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But since Alexander was a kid, growing up the son of a Baptist preacher dad and piano-playing mom, in Medfield, Gloucester (1950 to \u201955), Newton and East Providence, he\u2019s also made visual art\u2014drawings, collages, paintings, concert fliers, music zines. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Willie
Willie Alexander at Jane Deering Gallery, Gloucester, Oct. 11, 2024. (\u00a9Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAfter my moving back to Gloucester from Cambridge in 1997, I began making my own versions of the  Gloucester Times,\u201d he writes in an artist statement. Examples here show how he covered newspapers with collaged photos and headlines and texts to become mutant frankenstein reimagined news sources. The exhibition\u2019s title comes from one of Alexander\u2019s headlines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A 2019 exhibition at Gloucester\u2019s Manship Artists Residency had a number of paintings that were primarily scrawled with words\u2014\u201cFish Eye,\u201d \u201cYves Tanguy,\u201d \u201cAngels.\u201d \u201cRight before Covid, I began painting again with the goal of reacting spontaneously to the work and letting the paint do the painting,\u201d Alexander writes. \u201cI don\u2019t sketch beforehand or have a specific idea in mind when I begin working. What emerges are clouds, animals, imaginary landscapes, faces, and body parts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The heart of Alexander\u2019s exhibition at Jane Deering is painterly acrylic-on-canvas abstractions that can feel like cousins of Wassily Kandinsky or Hans Hofmann\u2014but, you know, from the line of the family that favors hot pinks and glitter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Previously:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

2024: Willie Alexander, Godfather Of Boston Punk, Celebrates His 81st Birthday<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

2019: The Secret Art Of The Godfather Of Boston Punk, Willie Alexander<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

2017: Willie Alexander At Home<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

If this is the kind of coverage of arts, cultures and activisms you appreciate, please support Wonderland by contributing to Wonderland on Patreon<\/a>. And sign up for our free, occasional newsletter<\/a> so that you don’t miss any of our reporting. (All content \u00a9Greg Cook 2024 or the respective creato<\/em>rs.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Willie
Willie Alexander at Jane Deering Gallery, Gloucester, Oct. 11, 2024. (\u00a9Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Willie
Willie Alexander painting, 2024, Jane Deering Gallery.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Willie
Willie Alexander painting, 2024, Jane Deering Gallery.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Willie
Willie Alexander painting, 2024, Jane Deering Gallery.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Willie
Willie Alexander painting, 2024, Jane Deering Gallery.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Willie
Willie Alexander painting, 2024, Jane Deering Gallery.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Willie
Willie Alexander painting, 2024, Jane Deering Gallery.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Friends and admirers crowded into Gloucester\u2019s Jane Deering Gallery a few weeks back for the opening reception of Willie Alexander\u2019s exhibition \u201cGoya\u2019s head found on Half Moon Beach,\u201d which runs from Oct. 11 to Nov. 3, 2024. Alexander, who’s a friend of ours, is best known as the Godfather of Boston Punk\u2014now in his 80s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25643,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25652"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25652"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25657,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25652\/revisions\/25657"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}