It’s estimated that about ninety-five percent of the world’s oceans remain unexplored. Alexander Kuhn’s piece, The Last of Her Kind, offers a glimpse into this uncharted territory, giving a bit of a closer look at one of the seven sea’s mosty glamorous (and also slightly scary) dwellers: the jellyfish. The painting is like a window into the world beyond the ocean’s surface, with Alex’s quick brushstrokes mimicking the fluidity and motion of moving seawater. The soft glow emitting from the rays of light shining into the ocean water, and the touch of bright color in the jellyfish create a sense of peace and tranquility that juxtaposes itself with the ominous nature of the dark background. In this way, Alex has captured the essence of the ocean in all of its fantastic beauty and also terrifying unknown.
Alexander Kuhn’s work stands out from the ordinary because he merges art and science together, with a large part of his painting process involving research. He studies forms from nature, memorizing their anatomy by breaking them down and mapping them out through detailed sketches. Using his sketches as a base, he rearranges them to fit his ideas in ways that maintain their roots in realism. Alex doesn’t really have a single, preferred medium, and instead he uses a wide variety of techniques in his work that range from pyrography, illustration, woodburning, ink blowing, and painting.
A recent graduate of Tyler School of Art in 2015, Alexander Kuhn is a young, self-taught local Philadelphia artist with a Bachelor’s Degree in Art History. Regardless of what obstacles the weather may bring, he bikes to his studio in Kensington every day to work on his next big project.
