Transcendent Musings
Transcendent Musings features two InLiquid Artist Members, Steven Alles and Ernesto Beckford, as a part of Hyatt Centric’s Meet the Maker Series’ Pride Month highlight. This exhibition showcases artists who have found their identity through exploration and self-invention. Through bright colors and portraiture, Steven and Ernesto show what it means to be visibly and proudly queer.
About the Artists:
Steven Alles
He/Him
BIO
Steven J. Alles earned his bachelor’s degree in painting in 1989 from the State University of New York at Potsdam. He earned a master’s in fine art in 1995 from Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) while working full-time for the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Rochester. His interest in the biological sciences and helping people in need led him to complete a bachelor’s degree in biology from RIT and attend medical school in 1997. He earned his Doctor of Medicine degree in 2001 from Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, NY, and then moved to Philadelphia, PA, where he matched in Internal Medicine at Temple University Hospital. He completed a Preventive Medicine Residency in 2004 at the University of Maryland, which included a Master of Science in epidemiology. After residency, Dr. Alles accepted a position at the Philadelphia Department of Public Health as a Medical Epidemiologist in the Division of Disease Control, investigating outbreaks of infectious diseases. He was promoted in 2008 to Manager of the Bioterrorism and Emergency Response Program and in 2017 was promoted to the Director of the Division. In 2024, Dr. Alles resigned from the public health service to become a full-time painter and frame maker. He joined the board of ArtWell, a non-profit organization that brings art and poetry education to Philadelphia school children to boost self-confidence. He now rents a local studio and is actively creating work in his expressive style with an evolving message of vulnerability, determination, and equality.
ARTIST STATEMENT
“I am telling a story informed by my imagination and experiences - interpreted through my unique creative abilities. When I create art and explore my imagination, I honor my mother and father. Though imperfect people, they made me and I believe that when I work and play, I describe them further revealing more of their story (and their parents’ stories). A catholic upbringing, abusive brothers, night terrors and absent parents shaped my younger self into a shy homosexual during the AIDS crisis. I responded through education and a professional career in infectious disease control finding my purpose and confidence through helping people with real problems. I continue to explore my evolving relationship with my sexuality and body celebrating the years I dressed as a drag queen at Pride events in Philadelphia to promote sexually transmitted disease testing, treatment and prevention. Each of these versions of myself describe a deep personal journey gaining knowledge and wisdom serving to make me a better person. As I age, I recognize how my hardships and fears were necessary to direct me to improve myself and drive further ambition. I use paint as an expressive medium of color and texture to integrate versions of myself with those who heavily influenced me - intermixed with locations and objects of personal significance. The current growing body of work is revealing the life of a troubled yet determined man who is pushing himself to share and grow.”
Ernesto Beckford
He/Him
BIO
Ernesto Raúl Beckford is a Hispanic American collage artist whose work has been featured in juried exhibitions across the U.S., including the Susquehanna Art Museum, Hudson Valley MOCA, Brand Library & Art Center, Rochester Contemporary Art Center, and Royal Nebeker Art Gallery. Ernesto holds degrees in English and Spanish Literature, as well as a law degree. After a long legal career in Washington, D.C., Ernesto now works full-time as a visual and literary artist. Rooted in his Argentine heritage, Ernesto’s work reflects the Latin American tradition of magical realism, where ordinary objects carry symbolic weight and the boundaries between memory, myth, and lived experience dissolve. He draws on spiritual iconography, queer and immigrant identity, and contemporary collage to build layered narratives that reframe personal and collective histories as imaginative realities.
ARTIST STATEMENT
“The works I am presenting are archival pigment prints of my original hand-cut paper collages.
My collages explore queer identity, visibility, and performance. Working with hand-cut paper, watercolor, and layered imagery, I construct figures who inhabit a space between tradition and self-invention. Many of the works reference portraiture, mythology, and fashion, but the subjects disrupt inherited roles of masculinity and femininity. Some figures appear in drag, some embody androgyny, some hold hands in quiet intimacy. Others borrow from classical heroes or cinematic glamour and reframe them through a queer lens. The body becomes a site of transformation: adorned, masked, softened, or made defiant. Color plays a central role. Saturated blues, purples, and reds heighten emotion and amplify presence. What might once have been coded as shame or concealment becomes deliberate display. These works are not abstract statements about identity; they are personal and cultural reflections. As a queer artist, I am interested in how we perform ourselves in public and how we claim space through style, gesture, and tenderness. Pride, in this context, is not only celebration. It is visibility. It is survival. It is the freedom to be seen without disguise.”
