ALEXIS de CHAUNAC

(French-Mexican, b. 1991 in New York, NY, lives and works in New York and Paris, France)

Rapidly up-and-coming artist, Alexis de Chaunac draws from literature, religion, mythology, art history, politics, and his own multicultural background to produce exuberant, mixed-media drawings. He describes drawing as “a transcendental language that anyone can understand.” He works quickly, often with ink because of its fluidity, producing rich, multilayered works filled with faces and laden with cultural references. De Chaunac draws inspiration from such diverse artists as Rembrandt, Goya, Delacroix, Schiele, Picasso, and Francis Bacon, whom he groups together as “chroniclers of the human condition.” His own artistic rendering of humanity comes from literature. He claims influences from the Scriptures to great epics and all the way to Beat Generation writers such as William S. Burroughs. Referring to his practice as contemporary myth making, he takes archetypes such as Oedipus, Jesus Christ or Dante “working out of them to explore the primitive aspects of the human being.”

Born in New York and raised in Mexico City and Paris, he grew up surrounded by art and culture, drawing in the studio of his grandfather – a renowned Mexican artist Jose Luis Cuevas. He then lived for ten years in Paris immersed in European culture only to return to the US to study at the Sarah Lawrence College, NY.

BIOGRAPHY

1991 Born in New York, NY

Lives and works in New York and Paris, France

EDUCATION

2014 B.A., Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, NY

2013 History of Art, University of Oxford, UK

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2019 Alexis de Chaunac, Botanica, Silas von Morisse, Sargent’s Daughters, New York, NY

2018 Alexis de Chaunac, Botanica Magnifica, Silas von Morisse, ChaShaMa, New York, NY

2017 Alexis de Chaunac, Rebelde con Causa, XLV FIC, Universidad de Guanajuato, Mexico

2015 Alexis de Chaunac, A Dance with Life and Death, Silas von Morisse Gallery (formerly ART 3), Brooklyn NY

         Alexis de Chaunac, Mala Sangre/ Bestiario, Pinacoteca Diego Rivera, Xalapa, Mexico

2014 Alexis de Chaunac, Mala Sangre, Instituto Cultural de León, Guanajuato, Mexico

         Alexis de Chaunac, Mala Sangre, Museo Iconografico del Quijote, Guanajuato, Mexico

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2017 7102 Fantasma semiótico (s)cituacionista, Museo de Arte Carillo Gil, Mexico

2014 Inaugural Exhibition, ART 3 Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

2013 What is an Art Book?,Garis & Hahn Gallery, New York, NY

2010 DRAW, the largest contemporary drawing exhibition, curated by Erik Foss and Miguel Calderon, Museo de la Ciudad de Mexico, Mexico

COLLECTIONS

Private collections in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Dallas, Mexico and Paris