Boston-based artist Alexander Golob was born in 1994 in Cambridge, Massachusetts to a bilingual, Italian and Jewish-American household. He attended Boston University, where he earned a BFA in painting and pursued additional coursework in art history and political science. Golob was named one of the “movers and shakers” of the university during his sophomore year for completing several public art projects, including a 100 foot long community mural (Kaleidoscope), and his enthusiastic activism in school and local politics. The artist also initiated a site-specific artist in residency program, raising $12,500 for the completion of four public artworks.

Golob regularly reaches out to the community for inspiration for artistic concepts, fundraising support, and volunteers to help paint. Often drawing on local history and aesthetic values, his public artworks reflect and react to the communities that host them. While most of his artwork is public and site-specific, Golob additionally exhibited a work that drew attention to various community groups who have interacted with his largest mural, Kaleidoscope, including a dance team using it as the background for a music video, students featuring it in their online profile pictures, and Pokemon Go!’s adapting the work into a Pokestop. Attesting to the positive effects visual art can produce in the public, the work was shown at Wall 2 Wall: Art Builds Community, an exhibition of street art in Somerville, Massachusetts in October, 2016.

Since graduating in May of 2016, Golob has focused on selling public artwork to the private sector through commissions and applying to calls for public art. It is his mission to create engaging art that expands beyond the walls of a gallery, provokes thought in the public, lifts up viewers, and transforms physical space. Looking forward, Golob plans to found a sustainable art studio, where artists can utilize materials and tools in return for a percent of the profit their artwork generates. Such a studio combats a major problem faced by artists in the 21st century; it is simply not realistic to make a living working exclusively as an artist due to the expenses involved and the limited market. By increasing access to materials, Golob hopes to provide the framework for artists to make a living from their work, with the additional effect of increasing the amount of art produced in general. Ultimately, Golob believes that the art world is not so distant from the real world, and hopes to act as a bridge between the two.