Connections between Art, Fly Fishing, Science and the Community

UB alumnus, Alberto Rey, MFA '87 takes us through his life-long journey as he has tried to intertwine his professional career with his passions and how he has managed to incorporate that mixture into his local and global service. His talk investigates his development as an artist that has been influenced by science and fly fishing and how he tries to give back to society.

About Alberto Rey
Alberto Rey was born in Havana, Cuba and, a few years later, his family received political asylum in Mexico. Soon afterwards he relocated to Miami, Florida and then to a small coal mining town in western Pennsylvania, Barnesboro (now called Northern Cambria), where he spent most of his childhood. He spent most of his life looking at American culture, society and nature through the eyes of a stranger in a new land. This sense of perspective has been deeply influential to his artwork and the projects he has selected to investigate. His artwork has been exhibited throughout the United States, Mexico, Argentina and Spain and can be found in twenty art museum collections. He has recently retired as a Distinguished Professor at the State University of New York at Fredonia and now concentrates more of his time working as an artist, writer, fly fishing guide and the founder/director of a youth fly fishing program. He has illustrated and written/co-written six books (https://www.canadawaypress.com/) and, in 2021, he received international recognition as the Orvis Fly Fishing Guide of the Year.