Al Souza was born in Plymouth, MA in 1944, has shown his work internationally since 1973. From a distance, Souza’s large works are fantastic abstractions of color and texture. When viewed up close, individual sections in each work become apparent, creating intriguing and unique narratives. Within each panel or work on paper, Souza creates an alternate presence for the everyday objects, building and molding them into a new, greater whole. Souza makes use of complex combinations of found puzzles in varying stages of completion to create layered compositions. The fragmented imagery – animals, toys, skyscrapers – placed on top of one another, creates a cacophony of the commonplace, with copious amounts of richly colored images layered together in unpredictable and amusing combinations.
Souza has been the recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, a Rockefeller Foundation Grant and a National Endowment for the Arts Visual Arts Fellowship. His work can be found in numerous public and private collections including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Dallas Museum of Art, El Paso Museum of Art, Art Museum of Southeast Texas, Tyler Museum of Art, University of Houston, Houston Airport System, City of Houston, New Orleans Museum of Art, Mississippi Museum of Art, Montgomery Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Yale University Art Gallery, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Parrish Art Museum, DeCordova Museum, San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, and the University of Massachusetts. He has had more than 150 solo exhibitions and has been included in the 2000 Whitney Museum Biennial, the 1981 Sao Paulo Biennale and the 1976 Venice Biennale.
The artist currently resides in Worcester, MA.