Alessandro Mazzoni in “Art in Expo”: the reality of emotions

Tablinum: in this interview we will know more about the Swiss artist Alessandro Mazzoni, present at the exhibition “Art in Expo. Feed the World with Art. 2nd Part“. At officinacento5, Como.

-What are the essential elements from which comes your inspiration to paint?

I actually do not have a specific element or inspiration from which comes my art. Instead I am very interested in the act of painting itself and above all the process of manifestation of the unconscious during the act of painting. Therefore every piece I make it’s a journey into an unknown world: I suggest something to the canvas but I try to listen what the colors and shapes want to say to me. It is like watching the clouds and then find forms and figures out.

– What are the techniques of painting that you think are best suited to express your creativity?

I like an art which is not clearly defined. Rather than expressing a direct message, I do prefer the ambiguity and the mystery. For this reason I use technique such as watercolor that by definition is not confined in close shapes but it is on the contrary open, transparent, liquid. I like the possibility given by watercolor to let the forms emerge slowly layers after layers, recording each stratum into the paper. There is a matter of time also involved: I have to start and finish the painting in the same specific period of time because when stains dry out new and new forms appears and I have to catch and just define them through my imagination.
For the same reason I like the color on glass that permits the light to filter through the color itself revealing new perspective and a different sense of depth. My installations are in fact a sort tridimensional version of the watercolor.

– Painting to externalize emotions and feelings or paint to communicate to each other?

For me painting (or making art in general) is the only way the human being possesses to express into a real and tangible form (which could be a painting, a sculpture, a poetry, a music etc…) the mystery of the world and the nature, making visible the hidden vibration of energies of the universe.
First of all when I make an artwork I want to be surprise of the result. I do not strive to express anything specific, nor a feeling neither an ideological thought. Instead I want to receive an emotion from the work I made, and luckily transmit this emotion to the viewer. It is like when we hear or compose a music which touches us deeply inside: the emotion borns in the moment of the listening or during its creation.

– Reality or reflexion? What prevailed in defining your own poetry?

I am interested in reality, but not the shallow reality that is promoting by the media system. I rather intend the reality of the feelings or perhaps the reality beyond our daily superficial sight. A fairy tale is more real than reality because it can evoke the hidden truth of our unconscious (personal, collective or mythological): we cannot see or touch it but its strength is enormous. Art is alike. Understand is not important as feeling in my view.

– A moment or a meeting which represent an important stimulus for your career?

A special meeting was with the Iranian artist Shirazeh Houshiary and her artworks when I was working for Lisson Gallery in Milan in 2013. She is an artist who shows us the invisible web of energy of the world transported onto the canvas with very simple tools such as colored pencils or pure pigment. Her philosophy and ideas are very stimulating and inspiring for me. Here below a phrase which is emblematic of her work:
“What I am trying to do it is not advertising. Advertising tells you exactly what it is. What art does is ambiguity , it leaves you to discover, it has a possibility and it is multidimensional. I want to see an art that has ambiguity and makes me think about the evolution of the world and my personal evolution in the world that I live and my place in space and time of this universe. So when people give you fact and advertising they actually kill your imagination.”
Into the evolution of your artistic career, is there something that is more relevant for you in the present than in the past ? A technique, a particular research topic?
Today, the people use to consider more the process of painting than the painting itself. Perhaps my paintings are less ‘decorative’ than before but I feel are more connected to the idea of ‘making visible the invisible’ as I said before. I am abandoning the figure which I am slowly understand is distracting from what I seek in art. Nevertheless I am still concerned with the emotional and suggestive aspects of art.

-If you had to choose a color to represent you, what would be yours? Why do you think is the most suitable for you?

I have a sort of physical approach to certain colors. Colors have a great impact on our mind and soul and therefore I tend to avoid colors which make me feel uncomfortable or contrariwise I choose exactly these colors trying to face the disturb that evokes in me. My palette of colors tends toward greens and blues even though in all my painting there is always a part of white (light) and black (shadow). In particular the black is crucial to summon an atmosphere or a suggestion.

Elisa Larese

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Alessandro Mazzoni was born in Locarno in 1987, lives and works between Milan and Vacallo. After having received his artistic maturity and graduating from the painting section of the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera. From 2011 to 2014 he held the position assistant to the gallery at the Lisson Gallery in Milan. He began his artistic career in 2008 and already has several international awards.