glen wexler
photographic artist
Glen Wexler is a photographic artist best known for pushing the boundaries of the medium, creating digitally enhanced photo-compositions of improbable situations. His signature style has earned an international clientele and the following of photography collectors, including works in the permanent collection at the George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film and Los Angeles County Museum of Art . His work has been exhibited worldwide including the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum.
At 22 years old, Wexler photographed his first album cover for Quincy Jones Productions while still a student at Art Center College of Design. Wexler veered away from his original pursuit of fine art photography to embrace opportunities in the music industry where he found a visual playground in which to hone his craft and vision. He quickly gained a reputation for his imaginative and elaborately staged photo illustrations for Michael Jackson, Van Halen, Rush, Black Sabbath, Yes, ZZ Top, and many others. Wexler is also well known for his studio portraits of musicians and celebrities.
Internationally recognized as one of the original artists to incorporate digital imaging technology into the creative process, Wexler is widely regarded as a leader in the field. His work has been profiled in many publications including Communication Arts, French PHOTO, Creativity, Los Angeles Times, Apple Pro Stories, and Adobe Photoshop Innovator’s Spotlight.
In the foreword of the monograph from Wexler’s 25 year retrospective, Tim Wride, former curator of photography at Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) states “Wexler’s pictorial constancy as a risk taker and his deftness as a problem solver are the characteristics that distinguish his work and make his images both meaningful and memorable.”
According to Eric Idle of Monty Python, ”Glen is a seven-foot Scotsman with a wooden leg whom I met Frog Rolling on an Eskimo trip in Northern Greenland.” Believe what you will. That’s the point. Wexler’s pictures have taken the viewer deep into make-believe worlds that look real.
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More than the pioneer of digital photography, you are considered its leader. You have influenced a lot of young photographers, so it seems like you lead a true movement, a true shift in art.
- French PHOTO
Glen Wexler is a digital wiz, seamlessly manipulating elaborate photographic imagery into playful fictions.
- Christopher Knight, Art Critic, Los Angeles Times
Glen Wexler doesn't just create rock and roll album covers, he is rock and roll in the best sense of the term. His album covers rock in their lyrical depiction and expansion of musical moments. He captures the essence of the artist and then wails with his own solo, creating a new entity that actually stands on its own.
- Michael Ochs, Author and Rock Music Archivist
The observer-spectator is entertained, applauds and fantasizes as if at the movies allowing him or herself to be lulled by the miracles of these animated worlds and their incredible new characters. And, we ask: are we sleeping or awake?
- Zoom
Wexler has assembled some of the most memorable advertising campaigns and imagery for musicians in the past 20 years.
- Photo District News
For Wexler, it's all part of making the image come to life. True to his original goal, he's created his own form of fine art.
- Communication Arts
The same way that Yves Tanguy, Max Ernst and Marcel Duchamp created nonsensical narration and thoroughly enjoyed successfully pulling our legs, photographers can now cut and paste their ideas the same way painters cut and paste ideas from their imagination to canvas, all for the purpose of creating a narrative and telling a story. This is a cohesive body of work. Glen with his surrealist attitude is really having fun with us.”
- G Ray Hawkins, photography gallerist on the “The Secret Life of Cows” exhibition