Alexander Motyl is a painter, writer, and professor. He studied painting with Leon Goldin at Columbia University and his artwork has been exhibited in solo and group shows in New York, Philadelphia, and Toronto. He is also the author of four novels and teaches at Rutgers University-Newark and lives in New York. In Alex's words: "I paint. Although I have no idea what, if anything, art is, I’m pretty sure that painting is about paint and the things paint - or the painter - can do on canvas. The painting may be abstract or it may be representational, but what makes the painting a painting is the interplay of colors, lines, shapes, spaces, and textures. What makes the painting a good painting is the aesthetic pleasure that that interplay produces. Interpretation, meaning, significance, and all those other big words come much later and are at best the icing on the cake. All too often, that icing can actually spoil the cake."