Their prof says he epitomizes a rare breed of artist

By Colin Herzog, '06
Led by Geneseo Professor Lynette Bosch, a class of art history students from SUNY Geneseo traveled to Fredonia last December to meet in person with a painter they had been studying all semester—

Alberto Rey will be an artist in residence at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mass., this month. In an interactive, open setting, he will create a four-by-eight-foot painting of an Atlantic Cod.

Alberto Rey of the Fredonia visual arts and new media faculty. They had boned up by studying the images and literature written about the 20-year span of his work. On a guided tour of his home studio, the

group gazed at strikingly realistic portraits he had painted of his parents and other family members from Cuba, tropical landscapes, details of Guava fruit, and trout and steelhead found in rocky streams of the U.S. and exotic location from the western hemisphere.

“Do you sleep?” one student asked him, then added, “I carry your resume around and show my friends.”

Professor Rey is indeed prolific. His paintings have shown been in more than 120 exhibitions in America, Mexico, and Spain, and are on the move as much as possible. “What good are they doing sitting here?” Rey philosophized, gesturing over stacks of paintings, packaged in plastic up in the attic of his home studio. “You have to get your work out there for someone to see it.” Eighteen museums own an Alberto Rey painting as part of their permanent collections.

An Orvis-endorsed fly fishing guide, Professor Rey’s passion is expressed in both casting his line and picking up his paintbrush. This month, he will be an artist in residence at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mass., where he will create a four-by-eight-foot painting of an Atlantic Cod, demonstrate his painting technique, and talk about the cultural and environmental significance of fish. “Creating a work is usually a solitary endeavor…This will be a rare opportunity for me to interact with the public and gain insight from their observations and thoughts,” he said.

Whether painting, teaching, or fly-fishing, Professor Rey wants to connect people with nature. His newest project, entitled “Biological Regionalism,” is a series of paintings and videos of native fish from around the globe, featuring the ecology they depend on for survival. In the current edition of the Peabody Essex Museum’s magazine, he says, “We are living in a period when we again need to be sensitized to our environment.”

His paintings of fish are incredibly life-like, richly colored, and show scenes of rocky banks split by silvery streams—landscapes from various regions in the United States, Iceland, Cuba, and Wales. In September 2006, he was invited to work and research with Cascade Resources Advocacy Group in Portland, Oregon, where he sought out the endangered Bull Trout. They found it and documented the experience. The organization is planning to hold an exhibition in Portland to showcase the paintings and videos he will create.

Professor Rey’s art not only draws attention, it heightens consciousness by sharing the things that have shaped and informed his own awareness of the world.
 

Las Balsas (The Rafts) IX (18x24-oils on plaster)

Hilda, Agramonte, Cuba (15.5x12, oils on plaster)

Years ago, while exploring the Cuban Refugee Center in Florida, he discovered numerous makeshift rafts constructed by Cubans trying to leave Cuba, many of whom did not survive the trip. The son of Cuban refugees (in fact, he was born in Cuba), Professor was inspired by those fragile boats--and the death of his grandmother who perished on one of those passages--to create his Balsas series. These dark, simple paintings, encased in wood, show tattered rafts and items refugees brought with them to America. They are somber images--a ragged baseball mitt, a child’s seat with a baseball cap, a compass next to gold watches hiding in the shadowy edges of the canvas--drawing out the curiosity and meditation of the viewer.

Geneseo’s Professor Bosch selected Professor Rey as the focus of her course because she thinks he is a rare breed. “You never see anyone doing what he’s doing,” she said. “Very few people have the knowledge as well as the technique to put their work together like he does.”

He epitomizes what she calls the “intelligent, educated painter.”

Professor's Bosch's class is producing an online exhibition and catalog documenting their research from the previous semester.