The Artist’s Dialog: Part IV
- By: Raven Sun Creative
Where we left off last...
Our conversation with artist Louis Alfieri is providing not just a glimpse into his personal work, but also into the creation of his professional ventures as a multi-disciplinary artist seeking to strike a conversation not just with the viewer, but with the guest. We last left off with a question that prompts a two-part response: How do you reconcile being a commercial and private artist? To take it back for those who joined us in The Artist’s Dialog: Part III, Louis shared the response, as it applies to his “commercial work”:
LA: In my commercial work I am creating a platform for dialog and experience, an act of co-creation. Experiential commercial work tends to take on less of an auteur mind set and one where I, and often a group of other collaborators, are creating a vision, narrative, and environment for the guest / observer / audience to play a part in. Other factors such as ergonomics, spatial capacity, regional accessibility, operations, consumables, and revenue support become a part of the creative parameters. If a brand is involved then you are also working to interpret a new kind of platform and expression of that brand. It is part you, part of that story. No different than if a film director creates a new variation on an existing story, or they reinterpret an existing narrative, reflection of life, or live theatrical expression of a famous story or play. These situations are a convergence of the existing framework meeting that of the new artist / voice, etc.
You can read the rest of Louis’ response here in Part III.
AK: You’ve shared how you reconcile being a commercial artist, but what about with your personal art?
LA: These differences in approach, at least for now, are also a reflection on using different mediums for these bodies of work.
My personal work tends to be human in scale, rendered in paper, pencil, paint, clay, fire, wind, water. It is self-funded, and thus more limited in scale and scope; the idea represented may be epic, yet the scale is confined spatially. Whereas my commercial work tends to be massive in scale, utilizing acres of land, massive constructs hundred of feet tall, computers, programs, light, lasers, and remarkably complex technological systems and large-scale human interactions.
Fall of the House of Usher series – pencil / gold leaf– 36” x 24”
That these pieces are primarily funded by others has required a more collaborative approach. Rather than being an individual auteur, it is more reflective of the work of an orchestra, and occasionally that of a patron commissioning a piece of work.
Currently both forms of expression influence each other, informing possibilities and insights. It is my aspiration to bring the two together, and a truly expressive, intimate, and memory inspiring dialog.
Nudes series– oil – 18” x 12”
Both forms of creation and work are guided and influenced by my beliefs, instincts, intuition, and thought processes.
I believe that we all stand at the center of time. All that which has come before is and that which will come after us.
We are all on a journey, and some are more aware of that than others.
I have come to believe, right or wrong, that death and the white light may in itself may be the rebirth. We exit this earth to arrive again in a new vessel to continue the journey. Reincarnation.
What is the divine – but life itself? Seeds into trees, animals, people.
I am an interpreter and bridge builder from that which is before us to our soul and vice versa. Plato said art as a distortion. I agree, we do not see the true essence of something, we see its current form, ever changing.
Light, texture, age, – like a river it is ever flowing, we never step in the same water twice. There are subtle differences over time, no two days are exactly the same. We age daily on the journey from birth to death. From the moment we are born we are dying. Each day we live – and we also get closer to death, our minds and bodies change subtly each day on the journey thus no two are the same.
As per Plato, as an artist we are creating through the filter of our experiences, when we create a piece it has been influenced by that world view, both inner and outer cosmology, when someone sees that piece it is filtered through their inner and outer cosmology.
To create in this dialog both as an individual fine artist and commercial artist with others is a divine gift.
Even my fine art is a dialog with the materials and vision. I work with wood fire and clay in pottery. Working with fire and wood you have the death and birth of materials, and transition of energy from one object to the next, and act of fire and evolution, a dance of life and death, what comes out of that kiln if both an expression of knowledge and an exercise in the conduit of the unknown, giving way to chance.
You and the fire are intertwined. Sometimes you are making love, sometimes you are just fucking with animal like lust and fervor. Sometimes you get off, sometimes you don’t.
When I stand at a canvas or drawing, there are those that must be done in a single sitting for that energy must not be interrupted – it must be captured without stopping. This is the moment of creation.
Other works are like game engines of complete experiences and relationships; they must take time, iterations, days, weeks, months, years to evolve. They begin with a seed that matures.
Apple sketch– pencil and marker – 10” x 10”
Join Us Again
Thank you for catching back up with us as we delve deeper into The Artist’s Dialog with industry expert Louis Alfieri. We will continue the discussion with thought-provoking questions and heartfelt responses in the new year as the dialogue continues around the irrevocable connection of artist, subject, and viewer, as well as the creation process of bringing artistic endeavors and immersive designs into our world through execution and intention.