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BIO

On January 16th 1971, a sunny Saturday afternoon (13:32), I was brought forth into this material realm, and was given the name Alexander, though Shandy was the name by which I’ve been called the most. I believe I was born to be an artist since my first experiences with visual expressions began at age 2 ½ (two and a half years old).

By age 7, I already painted with watercolors and color pencils, as well as colors I used to make out of leaves, flowers, small plants, clay + soil of different tones and vegetal coal.

By age 10, I attended art classes in a small private arts school in my neighborhood called “Escuela Taller de Arte Jaime Colson” (Jaime Colson Center for the Arts). Classes were so boring for my age, that before the 6th month I quit. By then I had also started composing. As an un-formed writer I started writing short tales and prose (most of which are lost).

By age 12, I decided to resume my path in the world of visual arts. This time I did it by myself (although I visited from time to time my former school). Somehow I believed that it was a bigger challenge to acquire these know-hows on my own. During these days, I also wandered into the acting, music, design, fashion, and jewelry atmospheres.

By age 16, as a self-taught artist, I already worked with most known media (charcoal, pastel, color pencil, crayon, gouache, watercolor…).

Impressed by the perfection of surrealism and basically by its greatest masters, I started working in such style by age 18.

Although I started showing my artwork at age 16 (though in small cultural centers in my neighborhood), 1990 was the year when I officially entered the world of the Fine Arts as an emerging artist. “Las Puertas de los Artistas” (The Doors of the Artists) was an exhibition created by Freddy Cabral where he gathered most of the renown, establishing and emerging artists of Dominican Republic.

The 90’s decade was full of activities in the art-world in Dominican Republic. It was a time when several emerging artists (painters, writers, actors/actresses, musicians, performers, etc) were welcomed in Santo Domingo. This led to a whole new view toward modern arts, giving importance to forms of arts such as photography, art-object, installations, etc., which were not so well appreciated before.

In fact, this decade was a very productive one for me. I pushed myself broader into the art world, learning new expressions such as Pottery, Etching(prints), Carving, Installation, Performance… I expanded my writings to a deeper level, concentrating more in prose and essays (mainly about culture or science), participated in a few plays and directed for the first time (The Glow of a Dying Sun by Annette Worley; 2000)

By mid 90’s and concerned by how installations were taking a place not so properly adapted, I decided to study Interior Designs at UNAPEC (APEC University).

This new experience ignited a great change in my artwork.

The ability to transform spaces not only allowed me to conceive conceptual installations based on and exposed in a rational way, but also metamorphosed my former surrealism works into a mixture of Post-Modern/Symbolism/New-Calligraphy styles.

Although I had worked previously as a museographer, curator and coordinator in a “Two-Man Show” in 1998 (“BARRO VIRTUAL”: Rafael A. Sepulveda “RAS” & Myself), the first time I worked as such in a bigger event was in 2002 in “PENTA”: a photography and paintings group exhibit by Dominican and international young artists.

In 2004 I was offered the chance to read some of my prose works (Spanish + English). This reading opened new doors for me. Among these is “Inside/Insight”: -a Two Man-Show by Erick Valera & Myself at Rio Gallery II- (the first exhibition I organized in US territory). This exhibition was a very important event in my career as an artist. Here I used a pseudo language (Shtym) based on a series of symbols and calligraphy I created by 2004 and these (symbols and calligraphy), led to the birth of a pseudo-mythology/series called “Third Anphor” which is the base of what I call “Rational Art”; which is the “Art Movement/Style” I conceived in terms of qualifying or defining my creations as an artist.

“Rational Art is a concept that flows from the artist’s psique and, in terms of deciphering a message, a persona, an image, certain beliefs… forces the viewer to decode a series of symbols, codes and riddles” -Shandy-

Alexander Miranda J. “Shandy”

Rational Artist, Ambience Designer, Writer