At the age of 16, Alejandro won first prize at the Annual Art Contest of the Federacion Estudiantil de Ensenaza Media (FEEM) in Cuba. After studying under a full scholarship in East Germany at the Kunsthochschule Burg Giebichenstein, he made his way to Berlin and began work on his first exhibit in June of 1994. The show, "Raises" was a theme-based exhibition on Afro-Cuban culture. As the now deceased writer, Jesus Diaz wrote of Alejandro's work, "...and just toward the obviously Cuban, Carreno turns his eye from a nostalgically distant Berlin viewpoint and draws in black and white - the first and major external difference of the inhabitants of the island, and delivers us, above all, images of black Cubans. His Cubans are above all, musicians, representatives of the biggest and deepest cultural Cuban dimension, wisely re-created by the hand of Carreno in all its lightness, that national dimension that Cintio Vitier described as constant in our poetry." In 1995 Alejandro moved to the Dominican Republic where records his impressions of Caribbean life in bright acrylic colors. His exhibit, "The Flight of the Dreamfish" in June, 2001 employed a new painting technique in which he utility of the palette knife as his primary painting tool. Alejandro's subjects surround us with beautiful metaphors in which the most imperative desires of the human being unite. His paintings deliver impressions of the people, the ocean, and underwater life with refined lines and strong contrasts that create a singular mystique. Since 2009, Alejandro has lived and worked on the island of Martha's Vineyard.