Alex Becerra Interview

Article: Alex Becerra Interview

(GNYP)

MG: LA is becoming famous for its concentration of artistic talents. Was it a conscious choice or a coincidence that you are living and working here? 
AB: It so nice about LA that it is so spread apart. On the Westside where I’m living now I can be a kind of recluse and don’t need to deal with anyone except my dog and my work. I got my undergraduate here in Otis in 2011 so I’ve been on this part of town since 2008.

MG: Did you move to LA to study? 
AB: Yes. I grew in this very little farming town Piru just outside LA County, where the majority of the population are Mexican immigrants. I was born in the US but all my family is from Mexico.

MG: What is your first language?

AB: Spanish. I was in school speaking Spanish until I was about 7 years old. The town I grew up in was maybe a thousand people; most of the kids were Latinos. Their parents were mainly farmers and pickers; my father was a picker as well before he became a truck driver.

MG: How did you go into art? 
AB: Probably through the local liquor store. It had these magazines, teen angel or something, which published drawings and letters from prison inmates; drawings of women, which the prisoners were trying to draw from photos of their girlfriends. They were really ugly in a good way you know.  (more at GNYP)