Alex McAdoo’s work explores the artist’s relationship with the American landscape through the lens of unacknowledged Eastern history. As a multiracial Brown American, McAdoo notes how “history can be used as one of the most powerful weapons.” As such, he has researched Eastern inventors extensively, particularly Alhazen, an Islamic Golden-Age mathematician and “the father of modern optics.” Alhazen's experiments and research on light and perspective changed how European painters approached image-making, which defies the prescribed Eurocentric story of art history. Using modern optical technology inspired by Alhazen’s light experiments—including a 360-degree camera that records images in all directions at once—McAdoo paints landscape images he collects while traveling across the US.

Alex McAdoo was born in 1987 in Bellingham, WA, and currently resides in Los Angeles, CA. He received his BFA in graphic design from The University of Utah in 2013 and his MFA in painting from The Rhode Island School of Design in 2019.

McAdoo has mounted recent solo exhibitions at Calderón Gallery in New York City, NY (2022); Moksha in Seattle, WA (2015); and Silos Contentor Criativo in Caldas da Rainha, Portugal (2012).

His recent group exhibitions include LA Dreams 3: Light Touch at CFHILL, Stockholm (2022); Liquid Frictions at Ambar Quijano, Mexico City, Mexico (2022); Silver Daze at Shin Haus, New York City, NY (2021); and We’re Just Havin’ Fun at Bill Brady Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2021).