Brian Alfred (b. 1974)
Biography
1997 – BFA, Pennsylvania State University
1999 – MFA, Yale University / Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture
Brian Alfred was born in 1974 in Pittsburgh, PA. Known for his paintings, collages and animations that examine the ways in which perception of our surroundings and culture is mediated by technology, his works present a flattened, depopulated and predominantly urban world derived from found images. His thematic concerns – including the signifiers of modernist idealism and technological progress, conspiracy theories and the growing prevalence of surveillance in the post-9/11 world – have led him to focus on images featuring architecture, machinery, interiors, urban and suburban landscapes, as well as text. The world as depicted by Alfred is distanced, banal – as in visually unremarkable – yet highly charged with possible meanings.
AWARDS
2011 – Excellence Award, Japan Media Arts Festival
2008 – Penn State Alumni Achievement Award
2006 – Joan Mitchell Foundation Award
– American Academy of Arts and Letters Purchase Award
– Penn State Alumni Award
2005 – New York Foundation of the Arts Inspiration Award
2003 – Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant
1999 – Phelps Berdan Memorial Award
– Skowhegan Match Scholarship
1997 – Edwin Zoller Scholarship
1997 – BFA, Pennsylvania State University
1999 – MFA, Yale University / Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture
Brian Alfred was born in 1974 in Pittsburgh, PA. Known for his paintings, collages and animations that examine the ways in which perception of our surroundings and culture is mediated by technology, his works present a flattened, depopulated and predominantly urban world derived from found images. His thematic concerns – including the signifiers of modernist idealism and technological progress, conspiracy theories and the growing prevalence of surveillance in the post-9/11 world – have led him to focus on images featuring architecture, machinery, interiors, urban and suburban landscapes, as well as text. The world as depicted by Alfred is distanced, banal – as in visually unremarkable – yet highly charged with possible meanings.
AWARDS
2011 – Excellence Award, Japan Media Arts Festival
2008 – Penn State Alumni Achievement Award
2006 – Joan Mitchell Foundation Award
– American Academy of Arts and Letters Purchase Award
– Penn State Alumni Award
2005 – New York Foundation of the Arts Inspiration Award
2003 – Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant
1999 – Phelps Berdan Memorial Award
– Skowhegan Match Scholarship
1997 – Edwin Zoller Scholarship