Alex Kuno is a full-time artist and illustrator living and working from his studio in the Arts District of Lowertown, Saint Paul, Minnesota. Working across oil, watercolor, gouache, and acrylic, his paintings unfold as psychedelic, apocalyptic, satirical fairy tales and surreal anatomical studies.

His work has been exhibited in solo and group shows in galleries throughout the United States, Europe, and Australia, and since 2022, images of his paintings have been regularly adapted into collectible tour posters for the band Tool. A new book spanning ten years of Kuno’s work will be released early next year.

Collateral:

Can you tell us a little bit about the journey that brought you to your current style?

Kuno:

Having grown up in an atheistic/agnostic household within a deeply conservative Christian town, I’ve spent my life utterly mesmerized by the symbols and innate absurd surrealism of northern renaissance Christian artwork, while equally feeling alienated and perplexed by contemporary right wing conservative politics and worldview. So very broadly, I think a lot of my “style” has become a constant exercise that attempts to balance seduction and revulsion in different ways.

*Echo* (left) and *Secret Conversation* (right)

Collateral:

Collateral’s mission is to explore how art (written and visual) responds to violence/war and its effects on society. One of the many aspects that drew Collateral to your art is how your paintings portray violence and the grotesque while still maintaining a beauty and softness: fearsome animals adorned with flowers, dancing corpses, gentle encounters with death, and such. Can you tell us more about how and why you paint what would otherwise be seen as grotesque with this more unexpected perspective?

Kuno:

Yeah, balancing the grotesque and innocent elements is as deliberate and necessary for my work as choosing the painting’s composition or color palette. The decision making process is similar to seasoning a meal or writing a story; any form of art that weighs too heavily on one end of an emotional/visceral spectrum without a counterbalance never really holds my interest. Also, Death as a character is a seductive and charismatic presence in my work, and the other characters in my paintings tend to excitedly run toward and dance with or embrace him. My work often explores how alluring and seductive authoritarianism and violent destruction can be.

*Gish Gallop* (left) and *The Riot* (right)

Collateral:

Your paintings often mix elements of whimsy/fantasy with the grotesque, much like traditional folk/fairy tales. Are they a nod to fairy tale tradition? Where else do you draw inspiration?

Kuno:

Yes, my work’s definitely stuffed with fairy tales/folk imagery; however, unless I’m making a piece that’s a specific reference to an existing story, all my work is meant to feel like a page from a fairytale, but one that has no discernible beginning or end. It’s meant to feel like the story is perpetual. But I also steal a lot of symbols and narrative/compositional elements from Northern Renaissance artwork, Russian orthodox iconography, and Buddhist thangka painting. And, maybe it’s because of the building global tensions these days, but I’ve long felt a special emotional kinship with artists from the German pre-WWII New Objectivity movement. Those artists I’ve been most drawn to are Otto Dix, Max Sedlacek and George Grosz. I loved them when I was younger because the anxiety and tension and dread from that time period always felt so palpable, and I was naturally in awe of any artist Hitler would defame as “degenerate.” Now that I’m older and working as an artist in this specific turning point in American history, their work couldn’t feel more viscerally familiar.

Collateral:

Recently you collaborated with the band Tool by creating some posters for them. How did their music influence those pieces? If you could do another collaboration, with whom would you want it to be? Would you be open to writers/poets creating ekphrastic writing inspired by your paintings?

Kuno:

Tool’s guitarist/founding member Adam Jones had been following me on Instagram and collecting my work for a few years before inviting me to make an original painting for their 2021 tour. My work’s been featured on their posters over 12 times since I think, and it’s been a real privilege and joy to work with Adam and the collectors/fans over the years. Aside from that first poster though, Adam’s just been picking from my inventory of previous work rather than having me make an original illustration for them each time, so I’m really only a tiny part of that whole process. It’s always gratifying when musicians feel an aesthetic connection to my work and I love collaborating with the right people, but I find working directly with independent musicians like Adam and Tool or Daniel Martin Diaz with Tress Speak to be much more rewarding and fulfilling than wading through anonymous industry reps. Also, yes, I’ve been wanting to make an ekphrastic collection, and I’ve had a list of potential collaborators growing in my head like a tumor for over 15 years. I’ve never ever found the time to pursue it more than just as an occasional passing thought though, so until someone approaches me with the proper funding and time I’m afraid it’ll be forever on the back burner—like 99% of my other ideas.

*Deep Down* (left) and Signal and Noise (right)

Collateral:

What past and contemporary visual artists do you admire? Do you hope to inspire young artists? How?

Kuno:

I’ve mostly been in the thrall of Northern Renaissance artists (Heironymous Bosch’s work has been as much a part of my childhood as Star Wars or GI Joe, and my earlier work was compared to his from time to time, but I mostly go to Breughel, Dürer, or Van Eyck when I need a fix), orthodox iconographers, and scientific illustrators like Maria Merian or Ernst Haeckel. But I love following contemporary artists like Allison Sommers, Femke Hiemstra and Linsey Carr and discovering new artists on Instagram. As far as inspiring young artists/people in general goes… man. They’ve got their work cut out for them, that’s for sure. Considering the content in my work, my daily inner monologue and news intake, it might be a surprise to know that I’m actually a generally optimistic person. I think it’s possible that original, handmade art could become desperately necessary as our collective humanity is handed over to machines, and tangible human effort and imagination gets rarer and rarer. Anyway, the near-to-indefinite future feels literally, flat-out apocalyptic, so you might as well go for it right? (Also, be kinder to yourselves and maybe take a business course.)

Collateral:

What do you feel is the most significant obstacle you face as an individual artist?

Kuno:

I’ve been very lucky and grateful that my career’s stabilized a bit and become more comfortable and rhythmic over the years, but every once in a while the memories of the anxiety and uncertainty from those early years still hit me out of nowhere like a PTSD flashback; they’re occasional reminders or warnings whenever I feel myself getting too complacent. I don’t work in academia and I live and work out of my home studio, so since there isn’t tenure or a corner office for me to work toward, it can often feel like I’m floating in outer space, particularly when I’m spending months alone focusing on a new body of work. So, all that’s to say I wish I could emotionally / financially / psychologically afford to disengage from my work for a while and be more present in other areas of my life. As a kid who dreamt of living off of the artwork he made from his own imagination, I never thought I’d grow to yearn to think about anything else.

Collateral:

If you had any advice for your younger self, what would it be?

Kuno:

I think I’d try to convince him to take better care of himself and take a longer view, to acknowledge that he has a whole life to look forward to and to be kinder to himself, to ask for help and advice and to maybe take a basic business course or something. That idiot won’t listen to any of it though.

*Beast w 2 Backs* (left) and *Future Has A Heart of Black Lightning* (right)

Collateral:

What are your hopes and plans for your future self? What themes would you like to address? What projects, exhibits, and shows do you have planned?

Kuno:

I really hope to one day not have to devote so much energy to planning the next project or exhibit! I’m turning 50 this year so maybe it’s my cratering testosterone levels talking, but I’d love to make work that’s more gentle and intimate and utopian. Considering the way the future’s playing out in front of us however, it’ll be a challenge to not wind up making work that’s winced at for being too cynical or sarcastic.

*Let Us All Dance Into the Sky* (left) and ‍*The Retired General* (right)*‍ ‍*

Collateral:

Where can we find more of your artwork?

Kuno:

Please look me up on Instagram @alexkuno, and I have a store devoted to my allotments of Band-signed Tool posters at alexkuno.bigartel.com

Interview with Alex Kuno