Alex Maloutas was born and raised in Los Angeles California in the late 70s early 80s. His “art education” started at an early age; Namely, his mother would encourage him to “make things” and spend his time productively, while his father saw to it that he knew how to swing a hammer and use other tools too big for his little hands. Alex bought his first Brownie box camera from a garage sale in 1985. His mother was already shooting 120 on her twin-reflex Yashica and ofter took him alone with her to the city-run darkroom. When he got his browny, all he had to do was ask for film. He was about 8 or 9 when he started shooting with his parents Pentax ME Super, which has an outstanding built-in light meter. He and his mother would shoot and develop film together, as well as enter various local photography competitions listed on the wall of said city-run darkroom.
Alex’s mom, a Swiss trained graphic designer, did all the branding, sales and marketing for the family run travel agency NikiTours. He and his sister also had to work at the travel agency, stuffing mailers and putting brochures under the windshield wipers of cars at Greek themed events. Alex’s mom was innovative in her graphic design via traditional paste-up methods and was an early adopter of the Apple Macintosh to do computer aided graphic design. In 1988 she began teaching at Otis College of Art and Design. Alex can remember sitting in the kitchen watching his mom grade the assignments and asking him what he thought. Meanwhile his father was always working on the house and making Alex work. In high school Alex made his first films with a Chinon Super 8 camera he also found at a garage sale. His high school “computer class” used Mac Classic II and hypercard to make interactive visual projects and he was the school photographer for Yearbook Jr and Sr years. Begining in jr. high and all through high school, poetry was his main form of artist expression; Followed by drawing.
After high school, Alex thought he might persue writing, but instead made it only as far as San Luis Obispo and Custa Community College. There he took his GE classes and spent the rest of his time in the school dark room or riding his motorcycle with his camera, exploring his new found freedom. While taking TV production classes, in-line with his film and video making, and playing in the darkroom with images he captured out and about in the coastal area, Alex got a late night call from his mother. She recently found out that if he was able to “get accepted” to Otis, that her years of service to the school and one of the perk of working there was, he could get an almost-free college education. Only a year after he left L.A., he was back in his home town. He got accepted and went!
At Otis, Alex majored in Communication Arts, while taking as many electives in Fine Arts as he could again spending a lot of time in the darkroom, as well as the wood shop, metal shop and video lab. Alex liked the labs and shops for making Art with his hands and would later learn at Otis that the computer design software and principles came easily to him. While at Otis, Alex interned at PhD Studio under Clive Piercy as well as Looking Studio under John Clark. After graduating from Otis in 2000, Alex flew to New York to look for work. While in New York, his teacher Tim Stedman asked him if he had a job lined up already. Alex informed him that he was in the midst of looking for work in New York. Tim said, “Well if you dont find a job there, come see me when you get back.” Alex went to see Tim upon his return and was eternally greatful for the chance to work with amazing artists under the M.C.A. records label as a contract freelance designer. He worked there for 2 years before leaving to take a position at DZN Syndicate as senior graphic designer. While at M.C.A. Alex developed and proposed a new curriculum for an existing class called Otis Magazine. Ave Pildas, the acting chair of the Communications Dept at the time, took a chance and gave him the class. It turned out it was a good decision, because this one class led to several more classes and areas for Alex to help the department. Alex co-taught Graphic Design for first year ComArts students with Patty Kovic as well as Video Editing for Advertising with Ricardo Caillet-Bois along with his own classes Digital tools I and Digital Tools II as well as Visual Narrative and Sequence. Alex also worked with Foundation student to give them an intro to basic photoshop. He was the assistant coordinator for the Otis Summer of Art program for one year and taught SilkScreen with Otis Continuing Education another year. In total, Alex taught at Otis for 6 wonderful years.
During the time Alex started teaching at Otis in 2001, he was also operating a creative space for artists who did projects and threw art shows in a 10,000SqFt 3rd floor warehouse space at 652 Mateo in downtown. It was a slum at the time, and they could do anything and everything their artistic minds could come up with. Being in downtown opened the door to textile manufacturing activities via his neighbors and Alex’s fashion career took off. Starting with just color separations for other peoples art and logos, people began to ask him to original “graphics”. It was during this time that he met Cassandra and made the logo for Juicy Couture. That led to work for Tarrant Apparel, making graphics for Jessica Simpsons clothing line as well as exploring fabric prints and treatments for House of Deréon, the clothing line of Beyoncé and her mother/stylist Tina Lawson. This list of people he worked with during this time became extensive.
Alex has been making art since the 80s showing in local galleries, and pop-up events. In 2010 Alex and Kent Bulza, a dear friend and fellow artist he met at 652 Mateo, opened a gallery in Cypress Park called New Puppy Gallery. For more than 4 years Alex helped run the gallery and was critical in the installation of over 40 group and solo exhibitions in the 3500 SqFt space. It was during this time that Alex learned what it meant to be a gallerist. From 2010 to 2011 Alex also served on the board of directors for AIGA Los Angeles. During this time and the year preceding the nomination to the board of directors, Alex produced small and large events including an awards programs for AIGA. In 2012 Alex left Los Angeles to travel Europe on a book release tour for the newly formed Mammal Press and the artist known as ROA. On the book tour, Alex brought all the parts to the book flat, to which he hand bound in Belgium, Germany, Austria, Italy and again back in Belgium, driving in-between them via a small VW Golf with ROA and his manager and a car full of skulls and bones.
Upon his return to America, and the successful launch of the first artist book by ROA, New Puppy Gallery closed and Alex moved on to a small personal studio space where almost 14 years after leaving art school, he was finally focused on just his art. In 2015 Alex became resident artist at Hive House and has since been making art and design for private clients. In 2019 and again in 2022 Alex created the main titles for the critically acclaimed animated series Undone, on Amazon Prime. Along with his book making, drawings, painting, sculptures and art installations, Alex is now making 3D art as a way to explore form in virtual space and IRL via 3D prints.
