Alex Bierk

Works
  • Alex Bierk, Brown Car, 2024
    Brown Car, 2024
  • Alex Bierk, Winter Stars, 2024
    Winter Stars, 2024
  • Alex Bierk, Flash, 2021
    Flash, 2021
  • Alex Bierk, From the window of our room, 2021
    From the window of our room, 2021
  • Alex Bierk, Night (Write her name in the sky..), 2021
    Night (Write her name in the sky..), 2021
  • Alex Bierk, Drift, 2020
    Drift, 2020
  • Alex Bierk, Amanda Reading, 2019
    Amanda Reading, 2019
  • Alex Bierk, Before the fireworks, 2018
    Before the fireworks, 2018
Biography

Alex Bierk is a self-taught artist who works primarily in oil and watercolor, combining a meticulous, time-intensive technique with a deeply personal vision. His paintings often begin with straightforward, unadorned photographs as references, which he deconstructs using a grid of quarter-inch squares. This deliberate process, juxtaposed with his themes of regional and personal significance, results in works that possess both an intricate intimacy and a quiet, contemplative power.
 
Bierk’s work transforms the familiar into meditations on resilience, longing, and the unseen forces that shape our lives. A pile of pills, light coming in through a window, a vintage car, or the highway are imbued with a sense of longing and transcendence, bridging the personal with the universal. These objects and scenes, rendered with unflinching realism, become symbols of resilience, vulnerability, and the enduring human spirit.
 
Through his art, Bierk also engages with themes that are deeply personal and urgent, such as addiction, recovery, homelessness, and the drug crisis. These subjects are treated with sincerity and authenticity, avoiding the sensationalism often found in media depictions. Instead, his work serves as a meditation on these issues, anchored by his connection to his community, his commitment to advocacy, and his own lived experience.
 
Bierk has received grants from the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts and was awarded the prestigious Laura Ciruls Painting Award by the Ontario Arts Foundation in 2020. His work has been exhibited widely, including recent shows at the Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto, ON) and Harper’s (East Hampton, NY). Bierk’s paintings are held in notable collections, including major banks, corporations, and private collectors across North America.
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