About
The Artist
On July 26, 1944 in a small village called Aruncuta in the county of Cluj, Transylvania,
Romania, future artist Alex Chereches was born. Deeply fascinated by art from childhood, Alex
created his first drawing using pencil and paper at the young age of five and by age seven he was
producing color drawings. At age sixteen in 1960 Alex imagined and painted his first oil on
canvas.
In 1963, Alex graduated from High School of Cluj-Napoca and began restoring religious icons
on glass. Hungry for knowledge, Alex aggressively pursued learning the technique of reverse
painting on glass, a century’s old tradition invented in the Byzantine era and still used in Eastern
Europe today.
Alex participated in various solo and group exhibits between 1977 and 1984 in the U.S.A.,
Romania, Yugoslavia, Canada, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, and Bulgaria
and received multiple awards for his Naïve paintings on glass.
Living conditions in Romania were extremely difficult under the rule of former Dictator Nicolae
Ceausescu. The communist régime was so oppressive that Alex was prompted to request
political asylum in the United States. In 1985 Alex immigrated to the U.S.A. with his beloved
wife and son, and settled in Everett, Massachusetts.
In May of 1988, Alex moved to Morristown, NJ. After more than one year of living in a small
cramped New Jersey apartment, Alex had lost his passion to paint and instead focused on his
family and his job. Ultimately, he realized that paintings on glass, as beautiful as they are, would
not become popular among the public.
In 1992 Alex’s long life dream became a reality. The many years of hard work and sacrifice
finally paid off. He and his family had aquired the ultimate gift. They become citizens of the
greatest country in the world. They became citizens of the United States of America.
Alex had not previously paid mind to modern art, but a fascination sparked in him and he began
exploring this wondrous world. Alex brought his brush back to life, this time making modern art
his medium. "I love to create; it shows who I am and what I feel. It's a whole world of thought,
dream, imagination and color on one simple canvas. I want to share my work with people and
see if it makes them feel the way I do. My dream is to open an exhibition and show the world
what I can do." Due to his one of a kind style, Alex Chereches is considered to be a "painter of
international status" in the field of Fine Arts.