upcoming exhibition:
Another Bird of Paradise
@MOCAGA
May 29, 2021 - July 24, 2021
Another Bird of Paradise
Curated by Marcela Guerrero, Assistant Curator at the Whitney Museum of Art, New York.
"Not necessarily knowing how to love, I collect thoughtfully like a bird of paradise and create out of the desire to be loved. I use still-life and assemblage to build worlds that reflect the constraints during this time of isolation and distance. This allows for my work to be more intimate, quiet, and collective.
Another Bird of Paradise is a nest of instilled moments from yester-years rush of events such as the health crisis, protests, and loss. I reproduce moments from past bodies of works to inform and collapse current realities. I then layer and interweave a sense of time that has passed through moments of fleeting motion and casts of elongated shadows. My memories are fragmented like windows of passing time or soft moments of stillness. I succumb and accept these works as a constant process of doing, undoing, and longing.
Currently my ideas have started exploring outward towards utopic themes such as the desire to gather whether it is to memorialize, protest, or celebrate. I question the reasons for us as humans to be in one unison striving for collective liberation."
Alston's Major Bodies of Work
Alston's earlier work posed questions that deals with the camera as a tool of activation, and the body as object; resulting in multiple themes based on the consequences of photography and the history of brutality that it is attached to. Alston's practice has evolved to become a interdisciplinary-photographic practice that has shifted into a practice consisting of assemblage and painting, all still inspired by the scope of photographic theory and traditional practice.
Desiring to understand what negotiates rather than who identifies; What mediates life and death on multiple targeted occurrences towards the black community? How does space, form, and object symbolize the fallen? How does the memorial become a place-mat for gatherings during the era where distance is strongly advised? Alston's work explores these questions to understand how this shift can reflect telescopically onto the world, thus creating a universal dialogue.
Alston’s recent work has been featured and reviewed in national and international publications such as the Aperture Foundations; Aperture Magazine, the New York Times, Burnaway, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles, GUP Magazine, and the New Art Examiner. Alston’s recent and upcoming exhibitions include Futures, 4 public installations within Belfast, Ireland; curated by Clare Gormley. the 2021 Atlanta Biennial: Of Care and Destruction, at Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, curated by Dr. Jordan Amirkhani & TK Smith. The 2021 Swan Coach House Gallery Edge Award Finalist Exhibition in Atlanta, GA. Lastly, His first Solo Museum exhibition will be on view at The Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia in late Spring, following his term within The Working Artist Project Fellowship for the 2020-2021 year.