Alberto Rey solo show opens Oct. 12 in Wyoming County

Alberto Rey>>

The final Arts Council for Wyoming County exhibit of 2012 will feature the work of Cuban-American artist and Distinguished Professor Alberto Rey, marking the first Western New York Hispanic Heritage Festival. The opening reception is Friday, Oct. 12 from 6 to 8 p.m.

Rey, a Distinguished Professor of Visual Arts and New Media at SUNY Fredonia, was born in Havana, Cuba in 1960. He received his political asylum through Mexico and lived briefly in Miami before his family relocated to the small coalmining town of Barnesboro, Pa. Rey attended the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and received his B..FA. from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. After earning his M.F.A. from the University of Buffalo in painting, he traveled throughout Spain, Italy, Morocco and Mexico. Upon his return he taught art in Boston while attending courses at Harvard University. He then had his first solo exhibition in New York City at the Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art (MoCHA) and was also selected into the permanent collection of El Museo del Barrio in New York City.

In 1989, Rey moved to Dunkirk to accept a teaching position at SUNY Fredonia. His works were selected into the permanent collections of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Brooklyn Museum of Art and Bronx Museum of Art. In 1994, Rey received the Hagan Young Scholar/Artist Award for distinguished research/creative activity as a junior faculty and the Minority Visiting Scholar’s Award from Central Missouri State University.

In 1996, while at SUNY Fredonia, he accepted a position as the Director/Curator at the Chautauqua Center of the Visual Arts at Chautauqua Institution. Soon afterwards, he was appointed to the New York State Council on the Arts and to the Artists’ Advisory Panel of the New York Foundation for the Arts.

In 2007, the SUNY Board of Trustees promoted Professor Rey to SUNY Distinguished Professor, the state's highest rank. He is also the recipient of the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Scholarship and Creative Activity. Rey’s artwork, over the past 25 years, has been influenced by his Cuban lineage and his attempt to find a sense of identity in a complex contemporary environment. His abstract work from 1982 through 1992 dealt with issues related to layered memories of Cuban iconography and his American experiences.

After 1992, his drawings and paintings incorporated realistic imagery as an attempt to make clear connections between his past concerns and art history, regionalism, and his bicultural concerns. Since his relocation to Western New York, Rey has performed extensive research on local entomology and on the migratory and biological sensibilities of the regional steelhead.

His reflections on contemporary society started to incorporate environmental issues, perspectives in contemporary art theory and art history, biology and society’s disconnections with nature. He has also combined this recent research with his interest in sharing the spirituality of fly fishing to become an Orvis Endorsed Fly Fishing Guide and the Founder and Director of the SAREP Youth Fly Fishing Program.

Alberto’s paintings can be found in over 20 museum collections and have been in over 130 exhibitions.

His films/videos have been screened nationally and his illustrated articles and artwork have graced the covers and pages of Gray’s Sporting Journal, Art of Angling Journal, Fish and Fly Magazine, American Angler, Saltwater Fisherman and Buffalo Spree.

He and his family now live in Fredonia where he works in his studio/barn, guides on the steelhead stream behind his home, and continues to teach at SUNY Fredonia.