A psychologist and lover of urban and industrial landscapes, Alessio Privitera plays with shapes and dimensions to entice the eye. Nothing is what it seems, and this requires the viewer to participate in the communicative process that the work initiates.
Alessio, tell us about you.
I have a degree in psychology and have always had an interest in art, partly because I have an uncle who is a painter, specialising in landscapes, and my father is a professor of technical drawing. Through my studies, I became very interested in perception and had the opportunity to collaborate with Gabriele Devecchi, an artist and designer who worked a lot on this aspect. Together with him I made an Ames room, that is, an environment whose perspective lines mislead the eye to such an extent that two people placed at the corners appear to be very different sizes, even though they are actually the same.I was very fascinated by the theme of perception, and from there I started to develop my own style by combining it with another of my passions, urban exploration. Basically, I like to go around cities in search of abandoned factories, smokestacks, refineries, steel mills, orphaned metropolitan environments.
What fascinates you about these landscapes?
I like them from an aesthetic point of view, because they are full of details; they are pictures in themselves, even though they are actually ecomonsters, because they are cumbersome structures that disfigure the nature around them. I was particularly impressed during a trip to Japan, where I noticed how – for example – the sea is not seen for its beauty but only as a working tool, and consequently there is no attention paid to preserving it. Despite this, the abandoned industrial landscapes are extremely interesting to me. Steel mills and blast furnaces, above all, fascinate me because of their great wealth of detail. At night, when they are illuminated, they are very impressive.
And how do cityscapes and optical illusions combine?
They combine through another passion of mine, that for microchips. I see and have always seen industrial environments in these circuits. So here I take macro photos of motherboards, and then I draw refineries or industries on them. Perception is tricked, because whoever looks at my works sees very large environments, while the source material is tiny. I was very inspired by Mario Sironi, by Lowry, by Diego Rivera, trying to develop my own style. It took time, and so far I have never set myself the goal of selling my works. Today I feel quite satisfied and I am starting to come out of the closet, but my aim remains to instil curiosity and make the viewer active, not passive.I like to think that a person, passing by one of my works, stops to look at it, asks questions. I like the idea that it is not a one-way communication from the artist, because the viewer sees, interprets, formulates questions and answers.
What do you think of Cinquerosso Arte?
was really impressed by the fine art print. I saw the prints live and I did not expect such an accurate rendering of the original: you can even see the tears, the marks on the canvas. Really incredible. In my case, it is interesting because it allows me to change the size of my works, which in the original are at most 20 or 30 cm per side, and make them much larger, without losing any detail.
Read the article of the artistic installation for InOut 2024!
