Alex Nuñez chronicles tropical dystopian landscapes. Sumptuous and decadent, Her paintings are defiantly glamorous and gritty– reminiscent of a South Beach nightclub floor. But look closely, and a vast landscape emerges, mutant mangroves and phosphorescent vegetation are clinging to a toxic planet in a triumph of resilience. Working in her Little Haiti studio, Nuñez builds up her canvases on the floor, pouring iridescent acrylic paint, scrawling chalk pastel and oil stick, drizzling glitter, and meticulously placing crystals amidst flakes of gold leaf to create hazy glimmering layers.
Ranging from two square inches to 16 feet long, the creatures in her paintings are inspired by the fauna and flora of tropical places on the front lines of climate change– her father’s homeland of Cuba and her native city of Miami. But here, the creatures have adapted to the radioactive present. Palm trees with jagged teeth and outstretched tongues strangle other plants to grab their place in the sun. Porcupines shoot light rays with quills. Iguana tails thrash pools of dripping ooze. Amidst the toxic beauty, a hopeful message emerges: new forms morph and evolve, a testament to their ongoing adaptation.
Alex Nuñez is a Cuban-American mixed media painter born and raised in Miami, FL. Nuñez is the host and producer of the “Sunday Painter” podcast on Jolt Radio, now in the show’s sixth year of production, and a recipient of The Warhol Foundation and Locust Projects Wavemaker Grant. She received her MFA from Hunter College, City University of New York, and was awarded the C12 Emerging Artist Fellowship. She has been reviewed and published in The New York Times, Artforum, CNN, Art Nexus, Hyperallergic, Huffington Post, W Magazine and the Observer.