What makes Alejandro Rubio’s (b. 1963, Montevideo, Uruguay) paintings unforgettable is their exuberant, vivid color. His palette reveals his South American roots combined with the clear light so unique in the Bay Area…A bright sun and her shadow collaborate as his narrator. The Islands series has a dreamlike quality. It is irresistible to imagine what it would be like to live on one of them, although they have no inhabitants. The exaggerated perspective is that of looking down on Angel Island from the Bay Area hilltops. Landscape-Man series builds on Islands, a humorous and somewhat sinister commentary on global warming and human exploitation of our earth. Alejandro grew up under a military dictatorship in Uruguay in a family that deeply valued the arts, at a time when university arts programs were closed. After graduating from high school, he was able to study studio art fundamentals privately with a painter who followed the teachings of Uruguayan-Spanish master Joaquin Torres-Garcia, who is credited with bringing modernist painting from Spain to Uruguay in the 1930s. Alejandro became deeply inspired by modernism, and cites influences including Paul Klee, the Bauhaus, and Uruguayan painter Guillermo Fernandez, who he subsequently trained with.​-Marianna Stark, M Stark Gallery