The Artist’s Dialog: Part II
Diving back into a conversation with the artist
Louis Alfieri sits down to share his perspective through the craft of his art, it’s process in an ever-changing landscape, and hopes for the future as an industry expert and a personal artist. In this new series, The Artist’s Dialog, we will continue to explore, question, and dive into Louis’ unique perspective based on his years of cultivated experience both professionally, and personally.
AK: How do we perceive the manifestation of essence, matter, and content?
LA: From an 30,000 perspective, humans need to mark their presence – I was here. This can be manifested in many ways, a handprint on a cave wall, bas relief on an Obelisk / Pyramid / great building, a painting, letters on a tree, a marker in the gas station bathroom, a flag on the moon, a metal plaque on a spaceship leaving our solar system. It’s all a form of transgression and animalistic pissing mark out and claim territory.
Looking chronologically, civilizations seed civilizations, they inspire one another. Civilizations have proven cyclical through history; they go through stages of evolution as articulated by Thomas Coles Eden, Domination, Zenith / Gentrification, Devolution / Destruction, and Rebirth.
The creative endeavor is the same. Art creates art, expression leads to story / ideas / inspiration / calls to action, observance – both passive and interactive. Art and music and an ability to express our existence that separates us from many of the other species on earth.
Jimi Hendrix– oil – 36” x 36”
As shared in the PBS Documentary Civilizations – Art is the act of expressive choice – Art allows us to fold time and be present with the creator at the moment the work was executed or completed, to engage in a direct dialog and make a human connection.
The creation, dialog, and art reflects the cognitive revolution and awakening of human consciousness – to create with intent.
AK: What is your intention with your art?
LA: There’s a lot to that question. Let me start with this –– I intend to offer more than one way to experience an interaction with my work. I have a very specific intention in creating each piece. It may be an intervention, an observation, a challenge, an expression, an exploration, a cathartic release, an visceral or soft emotion, a longing, a portal for transformation, or all of the above, etc. My intent continuously evolves throughout the creative process and through interaction with the medium and time.
There is an emotion, a thought, a story, a relationship with time that I am articulating and manifesting in said medium. There are many choices made in symbolism, color, texture, strokes, application that are carrying this creative intent.
Further, beyond my personal aspirations, fears, energy sphere and spatial presence, it is my desire that in whatever I create that there are qualities of the open, the unsaid, that there is more being shared than is present in this manifestation. I am sharing many layers of symbolism and meanings to be revealed, yet I want that dialog and world to be open enough that you may arrive at an entirely different conclusion and connection to your own life and experiences.
I Choose the Day– Acrylic – 3” x 5”
My work is not a linear narrative, rather it is one of personal agency and multi-branching narratives and outcomes. I want what I create to be a platform for others to bring their own meaning and concepts to, which may reveal learnings to myself. I want to fold time and space, having a dialog as a creator with a co-creator, joined in a physical and spiritual union.
Portals series– oil – 48” x 32”
I ascribe strongly to the concepts Plato and Aristotle articulated about the variations of what the eye sees being filtered by each person’s reality in an experience. Ultimately one of us sees the same thing. Further, I am very heavily influenced by Eastern culture and philosophy, perhaps most so by Wabi Sabi and the concept of the ephemeral and impermanence. These ideas of the ephemeral and impermanent reflect that everything is in a state of constant change, and there is profound beauty to be seen and revealed even in decay and ugliness.
My explorations are variable based on whether the work is being done by myself or as part of a collective team. Whether we are in the studio environment, or the field control of these is always different and in flux. What am I seeing in a different cultural environment that is influencing my ideas and intentions? One week I am in Toronto observing Henri Moore’s plasters at the AGO, the next in Santiago at the Art market looking at the traditional local artists, and the next at 798 Art district in Beijing. Each of these experiences is charging, enhancing, and influencing my mind and spirit.
I am a sponge, soaking in more and more and more.
Weather is always in motion and unpredictable. Restless, destructive, beautiful, and the bringer of life.
My work is an act of organizing energy into order—always striving for something greater. I feel a deep sense of urgency to achieve the potential I seek—like I’m running out of time, yet I feel somewhere deep inside that I must proceed at all costs. I embrace the challenge.
I am the fire – the destruction, the rebirth, and the renewal on a daily basis.
In the Next part of the artist's dialog
In the third installment of The Artist’s Dialog, Louis will share his process behind reckoning professional work versus personal projects, and the ever-changing disruption between differentiating commercial work from a more intimate form of expression. We look forward to having you join us for Part III.