Alex Israel (American, b. 1982)Based in Los Angeles, Alex Israel engages with the particular culture of the local film and media industries. Mining the “food chain” of show business, he interrogates and confounds the fine line between “talent” and “raw material” while reframing and re-presenting manufactured items whose formal and auratic properties are often overlooked. For Israel, the American Dream, as embodied by the Los Angeles mythos, remains affecting and potent. Channeling celebrity culture as well as the slick appearance and aspirations of the entertainment capital, Israel approaches his hometown with an uncanny coupling of local familiarity and anthropological curiosity. His work alludes to both California cool and calculated brand creation, embracing clichés and styles that exude the hygienic optimism endemic to the local scene.Israel is a multimedia artist and writer. His work includes large, colorful airbrushed paintings of abstract gradients and Los Angeles skies, his self-portrait painted on shaped fiberglass panels, multimedia installations constructed from movie-house props, as well as prints.Israel received a BA in 2003 from Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, and an MFA in 2010 from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. For a time, Israel moved to New York where he worked as an assistant at galleries as well as for the artist Jason Rhoades, before embarking on his solo career. Israel’s works are in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Netherlands; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.Israel is the founder of Freeway Eyewear, a Los-Angeles-inspired sunglass brand.