Alexander Kroll (b. 1981, New York City, USA) is a painter who lives and works in London, known for large-scale abstract canvases built through a process of layering, erasure, and physical improvisation.
He received his BA from Yale University and his MFA from Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, where his practice took its definitive shape. Working with oil, acrylic, and enamel on canvas, Kroll approaches painting as a conversation in which each mark initiates a continuum of relationships: one gesture leads to the next, and one completed work leads to another. His layered surfaces carry the full history of their making, with time itself embedded in the paint as a material and conceptual element. Fluorescent color, gestural fluidity, and architectural structure coexist in his canvases, producing work that is at once physically immediate and quietly meditative.
In 2014, Alexander Kroll was artist-in-residence at 68projects by KORNFELD Galerie Berlin, participating in the inaugural group exhibition Roster Crow alongside William Bradley and Jennifer Packer.
Alexander Kroll (b. 1981, New York City, USA) lives and works in London. He received his BA from Yale University and his MFA from Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles. It was in Los Angeles that Kroll fully committed to abstraction and improvisation as the governing principles of his practice, developing a way of working that he has described as fundamentally unplanned, shaped by the logic of the canvas rather than by predetermined intention.
Kroll builds his paintings through layered applications of oil, acrylic, and enamel, employing underpainting, collage, and subtractive techniques to generate surfaces that hold the full record of their own making. Each brushstroke is not only a new mark on the physical world but a trace of the unseen processes that led to its formation. His paintings can take between a month and two years to complete, and this duration is not incidental but structural: time spent in the work becomes embedded in the paint, giving the canvases a density and presence that resists quick reading. The result is a practice that balances gestural fluidity with architectural structure, and spontaneity with sustained commitment. His large-scale canvases and fluorescent color palettes produce a rhythmic visual effect that reveals the process behind the work, where each mark and each completed piece naturally leads to the next.
Kroll has received the Oscar Williams and Gene Derwood Grant, administered by the New York Historical Trust (2016). His work has been presented at institutional venues including the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena, the Torrance Art Museum, the Ben Maltz Gallery at Otis College of Art and Design, the UCLA New Wight Gallery in Los Angeles, and Lincoln Center in New York. In 2013, he was artist-in-residence at the Santa Fe Art Institute in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
In 2014, Alexander Kroll was artist-in-residence at 68projects by KORNFELD Galerie Berlin. That same year, his work was presented in Roster Crow, the inaugural group exhibition at 68projects, alongside William Bradley and Jennifer Packer. Invited by Quang Bao, 68projects' first artistic director, the exhibition introduced the gallery's rotating roster program and asserted the continued relevance and possibility of oil painting for new European audiences. Kroll later appeared in the anniversary group exhibition Berlin on my Mind. Celebrating 10 Years of Artistic Residency at 68projects by KORNFELD (21 June to 24 August 2024). His practice continues to evolve as a sustained investigation into what painting can hold, accumulate, and reveal through the slow, physical act of its own making.
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Berlin on my Mind. Celebrating 10 Years of Artistic Residency at 68projects by KORNFELD – Groupshow
21 Jun - 24 Aug 2024 68projectsARTISTSRead more
Dawit Abebe, Olasunkanmi Akomolehin, Cristina BanBan, Yevgeniya Baras, William Bradley, Giorgio Celin, Chris Engman, Kimia Ferdowsi Kline, Seong Joon Hong, Chris Hood, Michael John Kelly, Alexander Kroll, Doron Langberg, Sandeep Mukherjee, Jennifer Packer, Adrianne Rubenstein, Kyungmi Shin, Levan Songulashvili, Panos Tsagaris, Rachel Eulena Williams & Liat Yossifor
INFORMATION
On 21 June, we will showcase 21 works by the 21 artists who have been our guests as artists-in-residence over the past 10 years of 68projects by KORNFELD – with ‘Berlin on My Mind’. We are celebrating our 10 years with 68projects by KORNFELD and the 10 years of our artist-in-residence program, but also our future, which we hope to keep creating in Berlin. In Berlin, international artists look for new perspectives, a place where ideas mingle
Opening: June 21 2024, 6 pm
Exhibition: June 21 – August 24 2024, Tue – Sat, 11 am – 6 pm
68projects by KORNFELD, Fasanenstr. 68, 10719 Berlin -
Roster Crow – Groupshow
6 Sep - 8 Nov 2014 68projectsWilliam Bradley, Alexander Kroll, Jennifer PackerRead more
By exhibiting two abstract and one figurative painter, 68projects asserts the importance and still-meaningful possibilities of oil painting while signalling its primary intent of showcasing emerging painters to new audiences in Europe.
"A painting can make you instantly happy,“ - says Bao. "I gush in front of the wondrous works of these three painters, but my thoughts settle in on their more resounding potential contributions to the oldest art form.“
