VisArts Studio Fellowship June – December 2017   Alex Braden

Alex Braden is a sound artist, sculptor, and multi-instrumentalist residing in Washington, D.C. He began his study of Classical Piano at age 4, and migrated to Jazz Guitar at 11 years old. After teaching private music lessons to his own instructor’s beginner and intermediate students all throughout high school, Alex abandoned a music scholarship in pursuit of a B.F.A. in Sound Art & Independent Study. 

Braden has earned fellowships from the Ballston BID (Virginia), Arlington (Virginia) Commission for the Arts, D.C. Commission on Arts and Humanities, Rockland Residency Program (Seattle, Washington), and Vermont Studio Center. He’s toured nationally with three bands, installs prolifically in myriad galleries along the East coast, and his work is in the permanent collection of the U.S. Department of State. 

ARTIST STATEMENT

I use sound and sculpture to create interactive installations and immersive experiences. I believe that the medium through which listeners engage with sound should bear as much aesthetic weight as the content of the sound itself. I often employ antiquated technology for my sound-making, asking listeners to answer a rotary telephone, navigate rebuilt tape machines, or step into a phone booth to engage with my work. I also use scale and distance to immerse listeners in audio—often splitting a single composition among multiple speakers in an installation to create theatrical, spacious, and lush soundscapes.

www.alexanderbraden.com

VisArts is an independent non-profit art center located in the heart of Rockville Town Square, a thriving gathering place for the local community. VisArts presents exhibitions of contemporary emerging and established artists in four galleries, an Emerging Curator Program, a Studio Artist Program, and an Art Education Program making it an active and important presence in the greater metropolitan arts community.