ALEX KANEVSKY

The Search of Clarity

“"I want painting to be difficult so that there is always room for failure. Working this way has an unintended consequence of improving the skills.
The struggle then has nothing to do with the technical difficulties and the level of skills. The struggle is mostly to find clarity"”

Alex Kanevsky is an Russian/American contemporary painter with a very personal style of oil painting. Kanevsky uses reality and abstraction to allude to both conceptual and concrete elements of the human experience, with nods to historical artistic influences ranging from Asian illustration to Modernism

Alex Kanevsky lives and works in Philadelphia. His paintings have far-reaching global impact, due to both their broad appeal and the fact that the artist has exhibited in museums and galleries throughout the United States, Canada, Italy, Ireland, and the United Kingdom

He studied mathematics at Vilnius University in Lithuania before going to the United States. After attending Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts –PAFA 1989-93, and winning a Pew Fellowship 1997, he devoted himself to painting full time. He has taught at different Universities and leads workshops worldwide.

Awards

2012 Lux Art Institute, art residency, Encinitas, CA, USA

2008/06/04/02 Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, painting fellowship

2008/10/12/14 The Ballinglen Arts Foundation, Ireland, residency

2007 Eagle Hill Foundation, Steuben, ME, painting residency

2003 Frantz and Virginia Bader Fund, grant for painting

2003 The Ballinglen Arts Foundation, Ireland, residency fellowship

2000/03 New American Paintings, 1999 and 2003 Open Studios Competitions

1997 Pew Fellowship in the Arts, painting fellowship

1994 Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT, painting fellowship

1993 Pennsylvania Governor’s Award for Painting

1993 Mary Townsend & William Clarke Mason Memorial Prize in Sculpture