For years I have been fascinated with, and influenced by, the fashion industry, especially as it relates to women’s fashion. The aggressively unique shapes created by the use of textured, patterned fabrics speak to me. I am in awe of the craftsmanship, care and labor it takes to create one-of-a-kind garments. In the studio, I cut shapes from the huge pile of fabrics I have collected and sew them onto moving blankets, which serve as the substrate. The colors, patterns, and heavy quality of the cloth form a visually complex surface to paint on. In fact, in a sense, I am “painting” with the fabrics. The thick paint itself is often integrated with the fabrics; but just as often, the paint and the fabric seem to go into battle with each other. This fight/conflict/anti-harmony sets up a tension in the painting that becomes an important part of the work. I am in pursuit of my own language, which not everyone will understand. While my work is primarily about “painting”, I see it located at t

  Alan Neider received an AA from El Camino Community College in Torrance CA; a BA in Ceramics from California State University at Long Beach CA; and an MFA in Sculpture from Washington University in St. Louis MO. While in graduate school, he received a Robert Rauschenberg Change Inc. Work Grant and was accepted into the MacDowell Artists Colony. Moving to Chicago, he continued to paint. There, he was represented by the Jan Cicero Gallery and later the Nancy Lurie Gallery, where he had several solo exhibitions. He was commissioned to create a free-standing painting on top of Navy Pier, and was selected to the CETA Artists-in-Residency program. He was also represented by the Henri Gallery in Washington, DC with three solo exhibitions there. Neider moved to the East Coast in 1980. He has had solo shows at Gallery 305K in Bridgeport CT (2011); Art 3 Gallery in Brooklyn NY ( 2016); Gallery L in Montclair NJ (2017); and Real Art Ways in Hartford CT (2023). His work has been included in nume