Pace Prints is pleased to present Where is My Mind?, an exhibition marking the release of a suite of 10 archival pigment prints by Alex Israel. Each work presents a new iteration of the artist’s Self Portrait series, mounted in a custom, artist-designed frame. The exhibition will be on view from April 30–June 6, 2026, at 536 West 22nd Street, with an opening reception on Thursday, April 30 from 6–8pm. This exhibition marks Alex Israel’s first collaboration with Pace Prints.
Please contact us at info@paceprints.com to inquire or request any additional information.
Defined by its profile-in-silhouette shape, Israel’s Hitchcock-inspired Self Portrait debuted in 2012 as the logo for his online talk show As It Lays. It soon evolved into a framing device through which the artist captures his personal environment in and around Los Angeles. Painted landscapes, city landmarks, his studio, portraits-within-the portrait and other quotidian excerpts accumulate into a serialized body of work that reflects the interconnected nature of Israel's art practice, public life, and online presence.
While his Self Portraits are typically realized as large-scale paintings, these new prints extend the series at a more intimate scale to invite close, sustained viewing. The title of the exhibition, Where is My Mind?, borrowed from the popular song by American alternative rock band The Pixies, emphasizes introspection. It poses a question the works themselves answer: within the outline of his head, Israel reveals what he’s observing, and by extension, what occupies his mind.
Born from the heightened visual language of Instagram, Israel’s Self Portraits blur the boundary between lived experience and the performed reality of self-branding. This new suite captures momentary fragments—a car against a residential landscape, a detail of the Hollywood Bowl, a view over LA from an airplane—drawn from walks, hikes, and moments in transit. Israel edits and filters these images with the precision of a meticulously refined social media feed to present life not as it is, but as it is framed.
In one example, a snapshot of the artist's studio jukebox—pop music being an ongoing theme and inspiration throughout his practice—is transformed into an image of mixed reality: flat cartoon birds and musical notes drift across a photoreal surface evoking the layered, augmented visual field of the smartphone screen.
Each print originated as a photograph, or a composite of photographs, which was then translated into paint by the Scenic Art department at Warner Brothers Studio. The resulting paintings were scanned, printed, and mounted within a custom-designed frame in the shape of Israel’s signature silhouette, conflating image and object, picture and brand. Through this expanded production process, Israel’s self-portraiture becomes increasingly untethered from any single medium. Israel’s Self Portrait operates as an ethos that can extend and multiply, offering an evolving framework for how we construct and circulate identity our new, networked world.