On May 7th, Athen B. Gallery opened a solo show by Axel Void at their pop-up location (222 Broadway St.) in Downtown Oakland. As a tribute to regular people, paying homage to mundanity and the everyday life, Nobody is built around the life story of Alvie Morris.
Alejandro Hugo Dorda Meys aka Axel Void has been known for painting large murals of anonymous people by taking random photos from the Internet as a reference. A couple of years ago, he created a mural with an image of a young boy with glasses in Atlanta and few months later he was contacted by Alvie Morris. Being recognized as the boy on a mural by his sister, Alvie got in touch with the artist and this where the story of Nobody really began.
After shooting a film about Morris’ life, his family, struggle with alcohol, love for music, photography and above all, his niece Zoe, the artist decided to create a solo show based on the same subject – he painted a series of oils marking important moments from Morris’ life, taking movie screenshots and his photographs as a reference. Depicting ordinary moments that anyone can relate to, the Miami-based artist paid a special tribute to Alvie by recreating these events as painterly oil images. Along with those, he also created an impressive 9 ft x 14 ft landscape based on his photograph as well as sculpted a cement bust of Alvie Morris, sort of parodying this classic form of celebrating a person.
Discuss Axel Void here.
