Jack Hanley Gallery is delighted to present Alphachanneling’s first solo exhibition, Utopian Erotic. The artist utilizes the simplicity of watercolor and colored pencil to celebrate the holistic pleasure of sexual union in nature. These mediums are particularly gratifying Alphachanneling to stay light and unencumbered without losing the immediacy of the moment and to explore inner realms. Alphachanneling strives to use the whole body in the mark-making process and to draw an image over and over until they become muscle memory and the lines begin to feel like a signature. These graceful figural compositions bend to passion and recall ancient tantric positions as well as more contemporary graphic novels and manga cartoons through their stylized, ideal bodies.
In the artist’s world, called the Utopian Erotic, women are exalted and sexual acts are supreme. The artist’s visual realm is influenced by cultures/religions such as Tantrism, Taoism, Hinduism and Buddhism, where the conversation of sexuality as an expression of the higher self flourishes. Alphachanneling finds sanctuary in the artwork of these cultures, believing that sexuality is the most wholesome prayer to life and thus the artist’s delicate watercolors and drawings strive to be a celebration of all life’s glorious and fantastic pleasures.
Compositions of sensuous and lyrical bodies are teased out, like following the faintest thread of a fading recollection of a dream upon waking. First, free-flowing and supple lines are drawn with ease to delineate interwoven couples and larger orgies. The artist then goes back to fill in more intricate detailing to the background floral and fauna and genitalia. Sexual acts are transformed through brilliant bursts of emanating flowers and luscious designs. The Lotus is a particularly important motif, which can be seen in Flower of Life as it signifies purity, spiritual awakening, beauty, fertility and eternity. Alphachanneling states that the “blooming self propagating expanding growth of the plants is motivated by the same life force that is compelling the characters in the images to merge with each other. So I see them as a natural compliment.”
The meeting of the sexes is depicted with great attention to color, symmetry and sacred geometry. When the fleshy pink female figure in Kitten Being Trained bends backward, her light blue male counterpart arcs forward into the curve of her back, creating a visual yin and yang out of the couple’s writhing bodies. The artist believes in the power of repetition as a means of creating rhythm and opening up the body to a more internal focus that can subsequently receive on a deeper and more intuitive level. The ability to be open and trust is further demonstrated through the intertwined figure’s bodies which create a circle. The woman’s head tilts backwards into the man’s hand and shoulder just as his hand encompasses her thighs. In sacred geometry, the spherical paradigm represents total inclusion and acceptance—a perfect metaphor for Alphachanneling’s philosophy and visual representation of the Utopian Erotic.