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One would never guess from Brad K. Alder’s art that identifies with Pig Pen, the droopy, downtrodden character from Charlie Brown.
“I’ve always been in a cloud of dust,” says the artist. “But in the last six months, things have been happening.”
Those things include a recent 7 x 7 magazine spread on the loft he was commissioned to paint in his trademark cloud-continent style, and a series of shows including Painted Rooms.
They also include a move to an apartment on Market Street, where Alder has encountered a whole new set of contradictions, including the construction of massive new corporate buildings and people passed out on the street outside his apartment. No wonder his art appears to be snapshots of the purest places above earth . . .
“Lots of thinking goes into my work,” Alder says. “I take into account the surroundings. I do a lot of public work. I’m a muralist -- I work really big. I don’t’ just go and push paint around, I take into consideration the weight of the walls, the surroundings. The forms are a reflection of the surroundings.”
As an additional service to the guests who will stay in Room 211, Alder removed bar code stickers from all the appliances and furniture.
“I abhor stickers and labels on clothes,” he says. I wrote a little note in the medicine cabinet that says, ‘Hi. Welcome to my room. I took the time to take all the stickers off of everything – life is a whole lot more pure that way.”
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