Alan Joseph Marx on location in the San Gabriel Mountains, 2015. Photo: Ryan Brewer
Alan Joseph Marx (b. 1968, Dayton, Ohio) is a painter and photographer living and working in Southern California. After stumbling through his adolescence in the suburbs of Los Angeles, he studied visual art for a few years at community college (1987-1991). In the early 1990s, he was selected for participation in an intensive workshop with performance artist Karen Finley at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE). Thereafter, he became interested in performance and relocated to Los Angeles to study acting with Arthur Mendoza at Actors Circle Theatre. It was here that he became deeply involved in an emerging artist’s work-study program that exposed him to the modern classics and ingrained a longstanding interest in narrative, both performed and pictorial. When he wasn’t producing and assisting the direction of in-house productions, he handled all administrative and operational duties for the theatre. Throughout the years, he has continued making and showing his paintings and photography, a practice that he predominantly aligned with Los Angeles LBGT artist communities of the 1990s to 2000s. In January of 2016, he established an official art studio in the Hollywood Hills, where he continues to work on a daily basis in drawing, painting, and photography.