Alek Chavez is a 25 year old screen printer based in Omaha, Nebraska. Obtaining experience with Intaglio, Linoleum, and screen printing, he pursued his passion with screen printing full time. After 8 years of screen printing under his belt, he continues to utilize his screen printing press to diversify his media.
I am a screen printer who just has the itch to sketch. My work alone, I fear, carries no meaning other than a visual emotional diarrhea. My work is not for a purpose but simply an outlet. Despite my efforts, I can’t decipher a majority of my piece’s meanings other than the itch to get something off my chest. Sometimes it’s just easier to start making something than it is to start a conversation.
I spent a majority of my life working with pencil and paper, sticking with a constant black and white palette. The first half of my life as an artist, I had an aversion to color. I weirdly found myself avoiding the color wheel or even utilizing color at all in any and every piece. It wouldn’t be until my teenage years that I stopped following the rules that felt restrictive to me and what I needed to express. I moved to pencils and markers on a canvas, no paint. No color schemes, no rules. Just a pop of color when I felt I needed it. I moved to cardboard as my canvas when I didn’t ‘Feel’ that a regular canvas was necessary because the feelings I needed to portray felt disposable. I stopped working with intention in each piece and just let my hands do their thing. This authenticity has stuck with me ever since. Each piece carries no intention in the beginning but with every ending, there was a purpose for its creation.
