In New York, Alex Israel begs the question, Where is My Mind?

With the City of Angels as his muse, multimedia artist, filmmaker, designer, and Los Angeles native, Alex Israel is embarking on his first collaboration with Pace Prints – the leading publisher and gallery of original fine art prints, monoprints and multiples since 1968 in Chelsea. Where is My Mind? is borrowed from the song by American alternative rock band The Pixies and reveals a new suite of 10 archival pigment prints that emphasise introspection.

For this new iteration of the artist’s Self Portrait series, the signature large glossy fibreglass-painted panels of his silhouette incorporate representational imagery, to frame his day-to-day observations within the outline of his head. This time, the scale is much more intimate. Closer inspection from the viewer reveals momentary fragments of The Hollywood Bowl stage to the sprawling LA metropolis from an aeroplane window, and an image inlayed with another image of the California desert, clearly showing the outline of an iPhone, as part of his psyche and an evolving framework for how we construct and circulate identity our new, networked world.

Each print originated as a photograph, translated into paint by the Scenic Art department at Warner Brothers Studio – where the artist typically works on a backlot designed by Johnston Marklee & Associates. The resulting paintings were scanned, printed, and mounted within a custom-designed frame in the shape of Israel’s signature silhouette.

Ironically, while allowing us to peek inside his mind, Israel is always slightly incognito, wearing a pair of sunglasses, which has become as much his personal trademark as the silhouettes. In 2010, the artist designed a line of sunglasses called Freeway Eyewear, a nod to his beloved LA, that he sold online, at Barneys New York and Gagosian Gallery in New York. Other high-profile brand collaborations over the years have included German luggage maker Rimowa, and Louis Vuitton fragrance bottles.

Along with large scale, colourful airbrushed paintings of Los Angeles scenes and pastel gradients, Israel’s work has become synonymous with Hollywood fantasy meets lived-in reality and self-branding in the age of Instagram. Evident with his 2025 Noir show at Gagosian Gallery Beverly Hills to The Huntington Pasadena European collections where his, Self Portrait (Dodgers), acrylic and bondo on fiberglass of the artist wearing a Dodger blue satin jacket, hangs near Gainsborough’s The Blue Boy.

Israel’s other highly praised past projects have included a web series talk show, As It Lays, titled after Joan Didion’s LA novel Play It as It Lays in which he interviews 33 LA celebrities from Michael Chow to Jamie Lee Curtis, and Marilyn Manson. Other Hollywood-centric endeavours have included art collaborations with Bret Easton Ellis to directing SPF-18 - a feature-length teen surf film released by Netflix with Molly Ringwald, showcasing cameos of Keanu Reeves and Pamela Anderson.

The Self-Portraits were also a reference for Israel’s limited-edition cover for the February 2020 Design Awards issue of Wallpaper* and he was a judge that same year for the Wallpaper* Design Awards. We caught up with Israel right before his debut at Pace Prints, which will be opening a new Los Angeles facility in the Fall of 2026, expanding its creative partnership with the city’s artists.

An interview with Alex Israel

Wallpaper* Tell us about the new collaboration with Pace Prints, and why you wanted to embark on this series with them in New York, and with a more intimate scale this time?

Alex Israel A couple years ago, I was nearing the end of a series of photorealist, scenic-painted Self Portraits. The mould we used to produce the fibreglass panels was essentially worn out – we had maybe two pulls left. At the same time, there were images and ideas I hadn’t been able to realise in that format. Some didn’t fit the scale – too intimate for eight feet, too expansive for the smaller study paintings at 24 inches.

I’d been collecting these ideas, waiting for the right context. Then Pace Prints came along. The collaboration gave me a new format – more intimate, but also more flexible – and a way to finally bring those ideas into the world.

W* What did you want to reveal about your conscious-subconscious in this new show and how did you arrive at the current visual narratives?

AI My creative brain turns on when I’m in motion. For most of my life, that meant driving. Then, during the pandemic, I started taking long walks – two, sometimes three hours long – and something shifted. The same flow of ideas started happening there too.

And this flow became tied to a new way of seeing Los Angeles – on foot, slower, more attentive. Over time, as the images in this series accumulated, it became clear that what I was building was both a landscape of a city I know intimately and a map of my own mind.

W* The Alfred Hitchcock Presents opening sequence silhouettes are the original inspiration for your iconic Self-Portrait series. Was there another person, place, song, or object that also inspired the imagery in these iterations of the series?

AI There are always a lot of inputs. Walt Disney Animation Studios, Georgia O'Keeffe’s skulls, Robert Bechtle, William Eggleston, John James Audubon. The Endless Summer poster by John Van Hamersveld. The architecture of Lloyd Wright.

And then more personal moments – like Diana Ross. The Hollywood Bowl image comes from seeing her perform there, a picture I took at her show one late summer night in 2022.

W* While not technically your studio, you work with the Warner Brothers backlot so much they gave you a parking space. What other spots in the city are favourite neighbourhoods and landmarks for documenting and creating?

AI Erewhon Market has become a real point of discovery for me – almost the way Fred Segal or Barneys used to function. It’s where I go to see how people are presenting themselves – how they’re dressing, how they’re spending, how they’re performing identity in real time.

Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival is another. I go every year. It’s a laboratory for culture. And Disneyland has always been a great teacher.

W* With social media and self-branding informing parts of your work, how do you feel about AI in the future context of the contemporary art world?

AI As artists, our humanity is the currency. As long as AI can’t replace that, it’s just a tool.

W* With Pace Prints expanding to LA this fall, can we expect to see more collaborations?

AI Yes. When the right idea comes.

W* In a pre-pandemic interview with W*, you mentioned trying not to have too many hang-ups or boundaries and just riding the wave. Is this still the foundation of your process?

AI The future arrives like a wave. I’m here to ride it.

The exhibition will be on view until 6 June, 2026, at Pace Prints 536 West 22nd Street, New York, NY