Hello Alessandro. Let’s start with a customary question – When did you start painting and why?
To be honest, I started painting when I was “adult” already – my first artwork dates back to 2004. However, I’ve always breathed creativeness at home, since I was child, – in fact, every member of my family has a passion for some kind of art, in its different forms, such as singing, music, or dance. Every one of them has always done it just for pleasure, even though in life, professionally speaking, they deal with other things.
Probably, my daily presence in these conditions has incited my artistic flair. As for me, I began to draw thanks to my father who gave me an album and a charcoal pencil, when I was 5. I enjoyed trying to copy the comic strip characters. Over time, I kept on doing it just to relax, with no pretension or anything. But once, I felt something that I cannot even explain, maybe desire to experiment, or need of changes, I only remember that I went to a store and bought some canvases, brushes and paints. That is how it all started, and never stopped.
As the time went by, I got always closer to the world of art, and I started exhibiting. At first, it was among friends who, like me, had some sort of hobby – from time to time, we organized collective presentations of various artworks, from painting, to photography, and to sculpture. Being a self-taught person, I was surprised to immediately achieve – during these events – a significant critical appreciation from the experts. In the end, in 2006, I took part my first “serious” collective exhibition at the GaMEC (Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art of Bergamo). This venue houses the permanent collections of artworks by Radice, Fontana, and Kandinsky, to name a few.
Over the years, I’ve had a series of personal and collective exhibitions in Italy and abroad, in very prestigious places, like the Quirinal Palace, the House of Dante, the Salvador Dali Museum in Berlin, the Miami River Art Fair, and many others.
Is it the first time that you “lend” your art to a brand? And how is it to work with a brand?
Well yes, I had got to work as an artist with other brands, but for ideas that in the end did not materialize; therefore, this of Lizzie Rust is the first true real project. Actually, I’m a graphic designer, I’ve been working as a freelancer for over ten years; thus, many aspects of the work process were familiar to me.
But perhaps, for the first time, I was able to combine my professional life with that artistic, by creating an artwork that subsequently was placed in a framework that is very unusual for a painting. I had chance to work closely with a team of competent professionals, and it was really amazing to see a painting, entrusted to a close-knit group of people, give birth to all this.
It was also very enjoyable, because, just as you said before, I had lent my face. So, beyond the unusual scenario for the painting, I was directly involved as an artist – and it was a great pleasure to accompany my artwork all along the path.
Let me seize the opportunity to thank Gaetano Bucci and the team of Genetica Marketing – Flavio, Alessia, Erico, Daniel, Daniela, Marion, ed Alessio – for having involved me in this beautiful experience. Apart from some initial problem with the Vespa clutch, I would say it’s gone well!