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Bio
Alex Coma
1991 Montreal, Canada
New primary studio coming soon in Villalonga, Spain
Founder of Roze Umbra
Graduated from Concordia University in 2014 with a BFA in Photography, Alex Coma then pursued his studies at the Montreal Fine Arts Academy where he received a merit scholarship in 2017. Recipient of grants from The City of Granby (2018, 2019, 2020) and of the Montreal Art Counsel (ARTCH 2019), the projects of Alex Coma have been presented in individual, group exhibitions and art fairs, notably at the Visionary Art Collective (New-York 2021), Marie-Uguay Cultural Center (2021), Archive Contemporary (2020), Stewart Hall Gallery (2020), Ubisoft Gallery (2019), Affordable Art Fair Battersea (London 2019), Affordable Art Fair Brussels (2019), Ave Gallery (2019), The Hamptons Art Fair (2018), VAV Gallery (2014). His work is in a few collections such as the Colart Collection, the Ubisoft Collection and Jacques Champagne’s Collection and has been talked about in media such as CISM (radio/ 2021), CBC Arts (online/ 2020), Vie des Arts (magazine/ 2020), The Gazette (newspaper/ 2020) La Presse (newspaper/ 2019), and The Concordian (newspaper/ 2018).
Artistic Statement
Alex Coma is an interdisciplinary artist, researcher and seeker. Following the traces of humanistic and symbolistic artists such as Joseph Beuys and Carl Yung, his work is a testimony of his inner life and findings. He draws from the symbolic history of an elite and secretive class, borrowing on cryptograms, esoteric concepts and rituals found in the written legacy of ancient texts. Coma applies the logic and vernacular of the semiotician, following tenuous but poetic connections between his inner self and larger concepts that are said to exist on the spiritual plane. Whether or not a particular connection can be proven is secondary to the kernel of truth that lies in the impulse to seek it. At the heart of his practice is a longing, or a prayer, for an essential truth that may never be told.
Most of Alex Coma’s projects take the form of an immersive installation. Viewers are invited to circumambulate as a sort of practice in mindfulness, encouraging their own spiritual journey. His past projects have attempted to answer thesis such as our inner world being a reflection of the outer cosmic world; flowers as being a symbol of “Anicca”, the Buddhist law of impermanence; most recently, of man being composed of the four symbolic elements (earth, water, air, fire) in various proportions that oscillate through time. His attempt to answer these hypotheses are described throughout the installations with the help of various symbols that take the form of symmetrical placements, sculptures, sounds, and representational paintings.
« The artist is not a person endowed with free will who seeks his own ends, but one who allows art to realize it’s purposes through him. » ~Carl Jung, CW 15, Para 157
« All symbols (…) are objectified ideas, weather human or Divine; and as such possess a real meaning; and this meaning is altered, extended and rendered more complex with every additional thing or influence by which we find it surrounded, or with which, we find it correlated. » - Author and Mystic initiated in the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor
