ROCKPORT,TX. Last summer Jorge Alegría brought six unusual yet powerful drawings to the Merit Artists group exhibit and connected with collectors from different parts of Texas. That success led to his solo show Heaven in the Garden Gallery. 

Born in 1971, Alegria lives and works in neighboring Corpus Christi. He is also employed by the Art Museum of South Texas. Although he has been exhibiting for over 20 years, Alegría’s art wings are beginning to spread across Texas. One only needs to walk into the Ricardo Legorreta designed building at the Art Museum of South Texas to find two exquisite drawings that are part of the museum’s collection. His work hangs with other Texas art luminaries, such as Kathy Vargas, Cesar Martinez, Joe Peña, Vincent Valdez and Chispa Bluntzer, to name just a few. Alegría’s work is also part of the collection at Del Mar College.

His most recent accolades occurred in Dallas at the Kirk Hopper Fine Art Gallery where he was part of a group show that included sculptor James Surls. For Slipstream,curator Susie Kalil assembled artists who use drawing in a direct and confrontational manner. Kalil is a former Fellow of Critical Studies at the Glassell School of Art in Houston. Alegría has been invited to return to Kirk Hopper Fine Art next year.

In 2014, Alegría was invited to take part in Texas Draws III at the Southwest School of Art in San Antonio. Texas Draws is a biennial exhibition that highlights the work of contemporary Texas Artists who exhibit eloquently drawn works that reveal the power of a simple line or mark and the complexity of the drawn surface. Since2014 Alegría’s artistic career has been experiencing a great deal of movement with group exhibits in Houston, Iowa, and Tennessee.

He is busy at work on The War of the Angels, a series of drawings based on a personal fictional narrative by the same name, originating from the story of Noah and God spanning centuries into the future. “The spiritual themes of the Bible stories I grew up with are the inspiration and essence within my narrative,” says Alegría. His brand of story-telling is done through drawn representational images of environments, creatures, and civilizations found in the story’s narrative.

For his exhibit at the Art Center, Alegría says “My drawings revisit The War of the Angels and reveal new images from the chapters of HEAVEN. I approach drawings like concept images and storyboards but I take the image to a more finished state, like a still or key frame from a movie.” Alegría’s goal as a story-teller who communicates through the art of drawing is to engage the viewer and have them experience something inspirational and new.

His solo exhibition will feature over 20 new and original works. Heaven opens to the public Saturday, August 6, 2016 from 5:00 to 7:00 PM with an artist reception held in conjunction with Standing Out 2016-the Merit Artist show. The exhibit continues through Saturday, September 3, 2016.