Alex Schaefer

Alex Schaefer was born in Los Angeles, California and still resides there to this day. He lives and works in his downtown L.A. studio and is an active fixture in L.A.’s contemporary art scene. He can be found quite often with his easel on the sidewalks of the bustling downtown city streets painting en plein-air street scenes often depicting many of the historical buildings located in and around the downtown area. With his outgoing personality he is one with the city where he lives and paints. 



Keeping abreast of current events in the news, he is not shy about including controversial and artistic satire into his paintings and often expresses his views onto the canvas. During the great American recession starting in 2008, Alex gained international notoriety for his politically charged symbolic plein-air paintings depicting banks on fire. 



Alex studied at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California and is now a teacher there. His main influences are the early French Impressionists and San Francisco Bay area figurative and abstract artists of the 1950’s. His oeuvre is wide ranging from traditional plein-air landscapes, cityscapes and street scenes to figurative nudes, portraits and abstract paintings.

Bachelor of Fine Art, Art Center College of Design, Pasadena 1992 

Coagula Curatorial, the Magnificent 7, Chinatown, CA June 2018

SPACE gallery hosted by Carnegie Mellon University, MARX@200, Pittsburg PA April 2018

Museum of Art History, Lancaster CA The Built Environment, 2018

The Hive Gallery, Tawdry, Los Angeles, CA 2017

Naming Gallery, Disruptive, Oakland CA 2017

BLAM projects FUTopia, Los Angeles CA 2017

Cactus Gallery, Sticks and Stones, Los Angeles CA 2016

Art Basil LA Projects, Van Nuys CA 2016

MuzeuMMM, EMS production Nude Survey 5, Los Angeles, CA 2016

Gabba Gallery, Wish List, Los Angeles CA 2015

Cypress College of Art Gallery, Contemporary Portrait, Cypress CA 2015

Art Share LA, Ode to the Bridge, Los Angeles CA 2015

Venice Canals EMS production Nude Survey 2, Venice CA 2015

Blackstone Gallery, Streetscapes LA, Los Angeles, CA 2014

Bleicher-Golightly gallery Masters of Illusion, Bergamot Station, CA 2014

Chinatown CHAOS REIGNS performance, Los Angeles CA 2014

Charlotte Street Foundation "We'll Make Out Better Than Okay", Kansas City, MO 2013

District Gallery, "Landscapes", Los Angeles, CA, 2013

Red Pipe Gallery, City and Self, Chinatown Los Angeles, 2013

Cal State Univ Northridge Art Gallery, "Burning Wall Street", Northridge, C...