Alex McAdoo

Alex McAdoo’s paintings shimmer with paradox — idyllic and disorienting, personal and political, rooted and refracted. Born in 1987 to an Indo-Caribbean family and raised in Bellingham, Washington, McAdoo paints the American landscape through the lens of someone both within and outside its frame. His works often depict quintessential suburban scenes — lawns, trees, driveways, station wagons — but the lens he applies bends and stretches reality like light through a warped mirror. At the center of these kaleidoscopic compositions is often a single philosophical anchor: the number zero.

"Zero is a philosophical idea — it represents nothingness, and also infinity. I see it as a symbol of my Indian identity."

McAdoo’s paintings are meticulous, layered compositions that pull from mathematics, optics, and autobiography. Inspired by thinkers like 7th-century Indian mathematician Brahmagupta and 11th-century Arab scientist Ibn al-Haytham, McAdoo incorporates ideas of light refraction and vanishing points into the very structure of his canvases. A central zero often becomes a compositional vortex, distorting everything around it: roofs melt, trees spiral, skies curve inward. It’s a painterly homage to physics and philosophy, yes — but also a reimagining of place and perspective.

"There’s a personal kind of optics at play. I’m showing what it feels like to see the world when you’ve grown up inside and outside it at once."

For Fable & Form, McAdoo will debut two brand-new paintings that continue his exploration of identity through landscape and distortion. While the titles are forthcoming, these works extend his inquiry into space, memory, and mathematical mysticism. Through warm-toned suburban palettes and swirling architectural forms, McAdoo reflects not only on the constructed environments of his childhood, but on the intellectual frameworks — often overlooked in the West — that shaped how we understand space, light, and form today.

Following Fable & Form, McAdoo continues to expand his painterly vocabulary, drawing on global sources of knowledge and autobiography alike. His recent solo exhibition Melting Boulevard at WOAW Gallery (Singapore) marked a major evolution in his visual language, introducing new philosophical and mathematical references that continue to shape his forthcoming work.

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