Otra vez, varios sitios habían replicado al nuevo fenómeno virtual. Con ese afán del copy-paste, las mismas ilustraciones se repetían en todos lados, sin ahondar demasiado en su origen, ni en sus autores. En ese momento, en febrero, todos ya conocían el Batman dibujado sobre una fotografía antigua, pero nadie sabía quién era el norteamericano Alex Gross.
Vive en LA, California. Dice su bio, como dato resaltado, que su paso por el Art Center College of Design de Pasadena fue clave en su formación. Es que Alex Gross ya tiene una historia en el arte nuevo de norteamericano con una visión icónica e irónica ya reconocible. Luego de sus siete exposiciones personales y otras tantas colectivas, el artista nos presenta lo nuevo, lo último que está haciendo, y que tanto ruido ha hecho en la red. De hecho, "Now And Then, The Cabinet Card Paintings", que hoy presentamos en Visualmente, en exclusiva, está en imprenta para convertirse en su tercer libro, detrás de "The Art of Alex Gross"(2006) y "Discrepancies" (2010).
1. How this project is born vintage superheroes?
i have collected vintage cabinet card photos for a long time. about four or five years ago, i started thinking about painting on some of the cards. first i just painted anything i wanted. and i used a lot of collage. then, i thought i need a theme. so, i decided to make a theme with characters from comic book, and popular characters from film and television too. it was a successful theme and it was easy to think of new characters for the next paintings.
2. I worked to achieve such a synthesis? Which illustration was the most complicated?
the paintings were not very complicated because they are small.
3. What was the criterion for selecting the characters?
i choose characters that i am interested in, or that i was interested in when i was young. i was very interested in comic books, so there are alot of characters from comic books like x-men and spiderman. i also loved science fiction movies like planet of the apes, star trek and star wars, so i have also chosen some characters from those films.
4. How long it took to do this work?
each painting only takes a short time. maybe two or three hours usually. i have done over 110 of these small paintings in the last four years.
5. What is the picture that you like best? Why?
maybe my favorite is called BOZO. this is a clown who was popular on television when i was a young child. i chose a photo of a man who looks unhappy for this one, and it was a nice combination.
6. You make a pencil sketch and then do it in Illustrator to finish it in Photoshop?
no. these are antique photographs, called cabinet cards. they are usually more than 100 years old. i paint with acrylic and oil paint directly on the antique cabinet card photograph.
7. How did you get the Batman?
i painted batman from the 1960s television show. i always liked batman and the show was the most silly batman, but it still was important to me when i was young.
8. What are your artistic influences?
i have many different influences. of course comic books, television and film are three big influences for these paintings. and also antique photography is also an important influence.
9. How would you describe your style?
some people describe my work as POP SURREALISM. i do not like labels for art, but this is probably the most common one that i hear.
