Working across painting, sculpture and performance, Alex Becerra’s practice emits an irresistible sense of unbridled pleasure. His series Descarga Heavy (Spanish slang for a jam session), encapsulates this sense of release. Becerra playfully meshes oils and acrylics, creating these texturally rich, almost glutenous paintings. Riffing as a jazz musician would between scales, keys and melodies, Becerra draws on divergent art historical influences, his Mexican American heritage, and habitual scenes of modern-day Los Angeles. Stylistic nods to painters from the Expressionists, Colourists and Modernists such as Jörg Immendorff, Jonathan Meese, Werner Büttner, Édouard Manet, Vincent van Gogh, and Francis Bacon emerge in his painterly style. Depicting tableaux of carnivals, portraits of musicians or emulating the varying detritus of advertising posters found in LA, the palette in his works seamlessly seeps into gradations of colour, whilst retaining the clarity of brushstrokes laden with paint. Echoing the practical methodology of these painterly forefathers, he produces deeply personal, high-octane and jubilant works. ...
