Aurelio Gaiga
Can you tell us about your artistic journey and what initially inspired you to become an artist?
Since I was a child I loved drawing, it was my favorite pastime. At around the age of 13, I started, albeit occasionally, to hang out with a painter from my town.
His name was Angelo Bertuzzi, he painted classical subjects: still life, landscapes, etc…
But he managed to imprint his own style on these works which made them special. He sometimes painted with his fingers too.
Back in high school, during a visit to the studio of one of my figure art teachers, I understood that being a painter was what I would like to do.
I believe the most important thing about being an artist is freedom. Freedom of thought and the freedom to be able to create anything you want on paper or canvas.
How would you describe your artistic style and the themes that resonate most with your work?
I believe that mine is a work balanced between abstraction and figuration, a space where many experiments are possible.
The issues I address are current issues such as technology and its ever – increasing impact on our lives.
I believe that reality offers many ideas for an artist.
What mediums and techniques do you prefer to work with, and how do they contribute to your artistic expression?
Although today is a vast variety of means and expressive techniques, even very different from each other, I remain anchored to the good old painting on canvas and on drawing.
I believe that drawing and painting are practices that are extremely inherent to our human nature, that they are essential activities like drinking, eating, and sleeping… …or at least that’s how it is for me.
Can you share a specific project or piece that you feel particularly proud of, and explain what went into creating it?
In 2020 I created two canvases measuring 140x200 cm, the largest canvases I had ever done.
One of these was a digitally distorted interpretation of Manet’s Olympia while the other represented the Russian activist Olga Misik intent on reading the constitution surrounded by policemen, also rendered with digital distortions but completely abstracted compared to the first work.
I had never attempted to work on such large canvases and I didn’t know if I would be able to impart the right tension to everything.
But for the first time I think the result isn’t that bad.
And I believe that I will create other works of this size in the near future.
How do you approach the creative process? Are there any rituals or practices that you find particularly effective for generating ideas and inspiration?
I have no particular rituals to perform before starting a work session. I go into my studio, close the door and turn on the radio or put on a cd : I like listening to music while paint.
It helps me isolate myself and focus only on what I’m doing at that moment.
In the ever-evolving art world, how do you stay motivated and continue to push the boundaries of your creativity?
To stay motivated I believe it necessary never to consider yourself to have arrived and always be open to change, to learn.
A change that can concern one’s thinking, the way in which art has been created up to now, one’s pictorial style…
Can you talk about a time when you faced a creative block or a challenging project, and how you overcame it?
A very particular moment of creative difficulty was in 2018.
After ten years of working on rigorous geometric abstraction I felt that perhaps it was time to try something new.
At the same time, my father began to feel seriously ill and even in the face of this, I felt that I needed to introduce something different into my work. After so much rigor I needed a burst of vitality, of color and so, I had that idea of television interference that I had been thinking about for months now but which for one reason or another I had never faced…
So I began to create my first works, even if they alternated with works of the previous style, until little by little it became my current style.
How do you view the relationship between art and the audience? What do you hope viewers take away from experiencing your work?
I believe that art can truly touch the so-called raw nerves of our society but how much this is perceived by the public I don’t know what to say.
Undoubtedly there must also be a predisposition for art on the part of the spectator. But perhaps the most important thing is that the viewer asks himself questions in front of a work of art.
In an era of homologation at all levels, in which critical thinking is certainly not encouraged, stop and ask yourself questions I think it’s the most important thing. I would be happy if it happened in front of one of my works.
