Alex Brewer

Alex Brewer, also known as HENSE, is an American contemporary artist, best known for his dynamic, vivid and colorful abstract paintings and monumental wall pieces. He has been active since the 1990s. In 2002 he began accepting commissions for artwork and over the course of the last decade has established a solid reputation as a commissioned artist, having appeared in several solo and group shows.

Although part of the legitimate art world for a decade, he is not apologetic about his years spent as a graffiti artist, as he feels this informs his current work.

Brewer was born and raised in Atlanta. He began doing graffiti at the age of 13 under the name HENSE and was so prolific at it that he earned what graffiti artists call “all-city status” by having left tags in practically every neighborhood in the city.

Brewer graduated from Grady High School in Atlanta. He attended Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond for a semester, but dropped out to pursue his calling as a graffiti artist.

Brewer developed his skill for graffiti in the mid to late '90s and early 2000s. At this time the city had a handful of “legal walls”, such as the Civic Yard at Peachtree and Pine streets, where graffiti artists could display their work. However, in 2003 Atlanta passed an anti-graffiti ordnance that made it illegal to paint private murals on public property without approval from the city.

Brewer has produced a number of interior and exterior works around the world for both public institutions and private companies.

His largest installation to date is The ISIL Institute in Lima, Peru amassing a size of 40 meters (137 feet) tall and 50 meters (170 feet) wide. The PUBLIC 2015/Northam Silos, a site-specific mural installation on the CBH Group grain silos, curated by FORM and funded by FORM and the CBH Group in Northam, Western Australia measures 36 meters (118 feet) tall and 11 meters (36 feet) wide.

One of Brewer's stated highest honors was a commission by the High Museum of Art in Atlanta to produce a site-specific installation as part of the museum's summer exhibition, Drawing Inside the Perimeter. He also created two original installations at the Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA), for the Skate It or Hang It?! Exhibition, which illustrate the impact that skateboarding art has made on his work.

In addition, he has commissioned work at Apple Inc, including a site-specific mural commissioned for new retail store barricade, along with artwork created for limited edition products, commissioned by Apple Inc, in Miami, Florida. He also has work at Facebook Inc, including a site-specific mural commissioned for Facebook Global Headquarters, in a building designed by Frank Gehry, commissioned by Facebook Inc, in Menlo Park, California. In addition to several works at companies including Aol, B2 Studios (Alton Brown's test kitchen and studio), Big Nerd Ranch, Hilton Hotels, King & Spalding, DLA Piper, Novartis, Tuner Broadcasting's Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, and PRPL Digital Creative Agency.

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