Alex G. Cao
“Immortal” | September 17th – October 18th, 2020
Robert Berry Gallery is excited to announce its new virtual exhibition Immortal by artist Alex G. Cao featuring larger-than-life mosaics of legendary popular icons including Roy Lichtenstein, Frida Kahlo and John F. Kennedy—merging the magic of antiquity with modern-day art.
“Immortal is a show about memories, merging the magic of antiquity with modern-day art,” states Cao. “This new series of mosaics features popular icons, utilizing tiny underlying images—like Frida Kahlo, the Statue of Liberty and Robert Indiana’s LOVE logo—to create the mosaic, making for a dialogue between the two images present in the mosaic. The words immortal and stainless-steel share the same word in Chinese; these works were created on canvas with mirrored stainless steel, presenting legendary icons in a new way.”
Cao immigrated with his family to the United States from China in the 1980s and studied fashion photography at the Fashion Institute of Technology, working in that discipline for over a decade. While visiting Napoli, Italy in 1996, Cao was impressed by the ideal forms featured in the antiquities and mosaics of ancient Rome.
“I started making fine art utilizing my experience and sensibility as a photographer to create something entirely new,” Cao said. “I wanted to create astonishing mosaics that utilized the sensibility from antiquity, with modern-day images, resulting in something completely new that I had never seen before. These pieces are created digitally, printed on a canvas, and on top it’s a stainless-steel mirror surface. When you look into the mirror, you see yourself, you see mortality; I wanted the viewer to feel spiritually immortal.”
Cao is an extraordinary artist creating meaningful and beautiful works that speak to the current state of the world as well as the importance of memories. Mosaic has roots in antiquity but no one has brought it to the present day quite like Cao. These unique works utilize mirrored stainless steel; their size and scale are truly stunning and will be the centerpiece of any home or office collection.
Mr. Cao’s works have appeared in Boca Raton Museum of Art; Naples Museum of Art; Palm Springs Art Museum; Portland Art Museum; Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center; The Sixth Floor Museum, JFK Memorial Plaza; Amerian Museum of Asmat Art; Harn Museum of Art; Hofstra University Museum; Flint Institute of Art; The Heckscher Museum of Art; Hammond Museum; Nantucket Historical Whaling Museum; L’Institute Culturel Bernard Magrez; Vanhaerents Art Collection; The Yuz Museum; The AIG Art Collection; The New York Stock Exchange Art Collection; The Navy Seal Collection; The New York Post Collection; Mayor Michael Bloomberg Collection; P. Diddy Collection; Bill Ackman Collection; Natalia Vodianova Collection; Donna Macmillan Collection; French President Giscard D’estaing Collection; Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev Collection; Petra and Stephen Levin Collection; Carolyn Farb Collection; The Sandor Family Collection; and other venues around the world.