Born and raised in Peterborough, Ontario.
Lives and works in Toronto, Ontario.

Alex works by transposing photographic portraits onto canvas stretched over panel board using a monochromatic palette of oil paint. Painting cell by cell in a slow, methodical and meticulous manner taking weeks, if not months, to complete, the artist carefully reproduces photographs of people he knows and some he doesn't. The works are not mere throwbacks to photo-realism as they might appear on first glance, however. The more you examine the paintings, the less it appears to be a truthful replica of a photo. Textures on the face, for example, appear so overly detailed that they come across as psychedelic or even supernatural, taking on a quality that is unlike skin. Rather than being a mere portrait, the effect of the process through which Bierk delivers each image is something unique and personal that speaks not only of the character of the persons depicted but the character of the artist himself.

Alex neither hides the process nor the cells which comprise the painting; rather, his method is always made apparent as it is integral to his practice. The regimented regime taught to Alex by his father, the late painter David Bierk, was a means to focus attention and keep his son off the streets and out of trouble. The painter draws upon this familial inspiration in choosing to continue to paint in a manner less natural to the artists own character. Within the painting, you can see the artist’s own personality clashing with this highly meditative and controlled process. Each cell can be read as a burst of painterly expression that has been constrained by the borders of each individual cell. Alex’s work is the result of the negotiation between the parts of the whole and the whole of its parts – the controlled technique of replicating a photograph amidst the artist’s own expressionistic and 'untamed' personality.

Robin Selk
Masters Degree
Candidate at Bard College's
Center for Curatorial Studies in NY