Social and cultural issues have been an important part of my work since 1985. The earlier work from this period concentrated on a mix of abstract and representational iconography that incorporated images from my past and present and its connections to American popular culture and my Cuban heritage. The Autogeographical Series (1985-87), the Black Lace Series (1987-89) and the Binary forms Series (1988-92) are examples of works from this period. The work provided an avenue for which to reexamine issues that affected the way I perceived the environment around me. While the images had specific references to memories, Cuban iconography, art history and contemporary art theory, it was clear to me that some of the abstract imagery was accessible to the public. I hoped, however, that I could create a connection with the audience through the specific stylistic approaches and a juxtaposition of the diverse imagery that addressed universal themes relating to identity and alienation.
In 1992, I became more interested in creating paintings that made clear realistic references to Cuban culture, religion, food, politics and its relationship in American society. The Madonnas of Western New York Series (1991-93), the Madonnas in Time Series (1993-95), Icons Series (1993-95), Las Balsas and Balsas Artifacts Series (1995-99), Appropriated Memories Series (1996-97) and the Cuban Portraits (1997-99) are examples of work from this period. The Madonnas Series and the Appropriated Memories Series investigated how the landscape could represent and symbolize a specific culture.
In 1997, I began thinking about the next phase of my artistic career. I was interested in creating work that explored contemporary society, art and culture from a different perspective than what I had explored in the past. The Studio Retablos Series (1997-99) was a transitional body of work between the Cuban influenced work and the new work that centered on environmental investigations. The Studio Retablos paintings combined found paintings with images that I had collected over the years during my research. These images did not fit neatly into any series but were important to me. The work also examined the perceptions about high and low art.
The Trout Encountered Series (2000-2004) and Biological Regionalism Series (2005- present) started soon after Studio Retablos Series. This was also the time that I started a youth fly fishing program and became a fly fishing guide. These series of paintings and videos examined the validity of regionalism in contemporary art and the utilization of angling art, art history, environmentalism and biology as a vehicle to examine contemporary society. The work documented local history and how it was affected by waterways and society’s interaction with nature. This new work also provided an opportunity to incorporate my interest in biology that had not been used since I was a biology major in college. The Biological Regionalism Series work examines bodies of water from around the world and aspires to sensitize the audience about their own environment that characterizes their region, but that might be overlooked. The Aesthetic of Death Series (2007- Present) uses nature and painting as a metaphor for human life and death. After experiencing the death of several family members and illnesses during a short period of time, I began the series to examine with the fragility and the richness of life.
Investigations related to the Biological Regionalism Series have taken me to bodies of water throughout the United States, Caribbean, Europe and Asia. During the exhibition of the Biological Regionalism: Scajaquada Creek, Erie County, New York, USA at the Burchfield Penney Art Center in Buffalo, NY in 2014, I was asked to consider doing a similar project in Kathmandu, Nepal. The next two years were spent working on the Bagmati River Art Project as Jason Dilworth, a colleague at SUNY Fredonia, and I took two trips to Kathmandu to finish the multi-faceted project that included an exhibition, publication, video documentary and website.
In 2015, the Extinct Birds Project began after seeing a drawer full of extinct birds at the Roger Tory Peterson Institute in Jamestown, New York. The next three years were spent answering the following questions: How did the specimens get here? Should they have been collected if they later went extinct? Where were these birds collected? What were their lives like? Who collected them, how and why? How were the specimens preserved? The research and artwork were used in a publication, videos, website and exhibitions.
In 2019, the Lost Beauty Projects started as a collaboration between the University of Buffalo’s Anderson Gallery and the Buffalo Museum of Science. Lost Beauty: Part I exhibition took place at the Anderson Gallery in the summer of 2019 and Lost Beauty: Part II took place at the Buffalo Museum of Science in 2021. Part I concentrated on the paintings and videos from the Extinct Birds Project with specimens from the Buffalo Museum of Science. Part II concentrated on paintings depicting small but significant artifacts from the Buffalo Museum of Sciences collection.
In 2020, during the Covid pandemic, the Lost Beauty Project: Icebergs were created. These are devotional paintings of icebergs that broke off from one of the fastest receding glaciers in the world, the Breiðamerkurjökull glacier in Iceland. The glaciers were documented in 2004 and in 2013 while doing research for the Biological Regionalism Series. I was deeply moved by the large solitary ice sculptures. I had hoped that one day I would create a series of paintings that would capture their beauty, the effects of climate change and the fragility of nature. Since each glacier only lasts around five years, all of these glaciers have melted years ago.
The Biological Regionalism: Oswego River and Lake Ontario, Central New York, USA created between 2019 to 2022 provided work for an exhibition, wall mural and a publication that examined the history of the Lake Ontario and the Oswego River’s challenges, and the prospects for its improvement in the future. The project also documented a few of the endangered and threatened plants of New York from the herbarium collection from the Rice Creek Field Station at the State University of New York at Oswego in Oswego, NY. This site-specific project was created for the campus’s Tyler Art Gallery. A publication accompanied the exhibition.
In 2020, long-time friend, landscape designer, and palm collector, Pat Tierney, passed away unexpectedly. His love for plants was contagious and the following year, while researching publications for upcoming projects, I came across Paul Craft’s book, The Palms of Cuba. After reading his book and several other publications and academic articles, I was shocked to learn about half of the palm species, that are found nowhere else but in Cuba, are threatened or endangered. The cause of their demise is the spread of agriculture and commercial development and the effects of hurricanes and other natural causes. This series, Critical Endangered Palms of Cuba, documents the palm species that are native to Cuba and that are on the verge of extinction. I see this work as an extension of my emotional connection to the earlier work from the 1980’s and 90’s and to the floral and fauna investigated in the Biological Regionalism Series, the Extinct Birds Project, the Lost Beauty Projects and the Aesthetics of Death.
In 2022, Jason Dilworth and I worked with the Native American Fish and Wildlife Society, United States Forest Service and Orvis to provide drawing workshops, stream biology sessions and fly-fishing lessons, during the Summer Youth Practicum, to a dozen high school students from nine national tribes. The Practicum provides leaderships programs, outdoor enrichment, cultural awareness and professional development. We also designed a publication documenting the organization and the history of the Summer Youth Practicum.
In 2023, the Elizabeth de C. Wilson Museum at the Southern Vermont Art Center in Manchester, Vermont committed all their exhibition spaces to the Biological Regionalism: Battenkill, Vermont, USA and Cultural Landscapes. Biological Regionalism: Battenkill, Vermont, USA is a site-specific installation of that included large-scale paintings that featured distinguishing natural elements of the Battenkill, a nearly 60-mile long river that runs from southern Vermont to the Hudson River. The exhibition will include Rey’s preparatory work, such as drawings, notes, maps, and photographs of him drawing and fishing, taken during his site visits to the Battenkill. His expansive research over the last 18-months included investigations into local history and entomology, biological cycles and history of regional salmonids (trout), stream restoration, Native American history and the role of the Battenkill in culture. 2021-2023
Cultural Landscapes, a retrospective exhibition Rey’s work, included selections from multiple projects: Autogeographical Series (1985-87), Madonnas of Western New York (1991-93), Binary Forms (1990-92), Icons Series (1993-95), Last Balsas (Rafts) and Balsas Artifacts Series (1995-99), Appropriated Memories Series (1996-97), Cuban Portraits (1997-99), Aesthetics of Death (2006-2016), Extinct Birds Project (2016-19), Lost Beauty: Icebergs (2019-21), and Critically Endangered Palms of Cuba (2021-22).
Also in 2023, Biological Regionalism: Niagara River, Canada / USA was installed at the Castellani Art Museum at Niagara University. The installation of large-scale paintings, wall murals, and soundscape explored the complexities of the Niagara River’s past and present. These paintings reflect on the river’s historical significance to the Underground Railroad, importance to Native American culture, and the pollution of the river and the communities along its banks.
The ATLAS : Historical Work and Recent Journeys of Alberto Rey was an installation that combined a few important paintings from the past thirty years with a new grouping of over a hundred new paintings and sketchbooks inspired by a five-month trip around the world. The exhibition took place at the Marion Art Gallery at the State University of New York in Fredonia in 2025. A 150-page exhibition catalog also documented the project.
The Where the Fire Ends is a body of work started in 2025 that explores the history, culture and genocide of the Selkʼnam peoples of Tierra del Fuego in South America. I originally learned about Selkʼnam people during one of our stops to Patagonia on our trip around the world in 2024. As we traveled across the globe, we realized that the atrocities that the Selkʼnam endured were common in the history of most of the countries we visited. This series is a metaphor for that realization.
