Aristide Loria, or ALO, as known in the artistic world, is an Italian artist based in London who has an ongoing exhibition in Saatchi Gallery called Liminal. Due to its success, it has been extended two times already and is being visited by many Londoners. The solo show features over 70 works created over the past three years and it will be available to visit until January 23th. Now, I will kindly ask you to follow my line of thought. I assure you, it is a journey worth taking.
The gallery is situated on the West side of London, in the heart of Chelsea. A very posh area full of bottomless brunch and dog-friendly cafes. But ALO is known for painting in the Eastside streets, where the urban vibes are palpable in the air and the buildings become canvases, and the canvases become icons of the city.
The gallery is situated on the West side of London, in the heart of Chelsea. A very posh area full of bottomless brunch and dog-friendly cafes. But ALO is known for painting in the Eastside streets, where the urban vibes are palpable in the air and the buildings become canvases, and the canvases become icons of the city.
One definition of the word liminal is the ‘occupation of a position at a boundary’. I think ALO’s signature is this force pushing the limits between fine art and street art, between the West and the East. Between opposites, almost bridging them. He explains it better than I do: “I develop my work in the studio and, from an aesthetic point of view, I identify closely with archetypal fine artists. At the same time, I feel close to the graffiti/street art approach that encourages the making of works regardless of approval or permissions.”
I got to see the solo show last week and I still have the feeling of wandering around the streets of Paris, or Milano, or Hackney, my hood in London. This is how eclectic and diverse his paintings are. He has lived in Italy, Paris, and London. He defines his art as urban expressionism, and I can tell you that if you consider what this artistic movement is about, subjective experience, you will be well prepared for the Gallery. Pouring yourself into each piece, all of your analytical skills working, your experiences erupting. Just like a hermeneutic circle. The very reason why the show is responsible for creating so many different experiences.
“Liminal is actually the opposite of subliminal. About my art, that’s a way to highlight the concept, ‘What you see is what you get.’ But the important issue is that it depends on what YOU see and what YOU get.”
I got the chance to briefly talk to ALO and ask him about what his definition of Liminal was: ‘”Liminal is actually the opposite of subliminal. About my art, that’s a way to highlight the concept, ‘What you see is what you get.’ But the important issue is that it depends on what YOU see and what YOU get. So, a viewer can see many layers of meaning on an artwork of mine but also none. That depends on the viewer himself. And that’s also a contradiction of the title itself because I think about my art as a kind of rebus: you have the solution straight away in front of your eyes but at the same time you don’t have enough clues in order to get a logical and rational solution.”
With these ideas in mind, I will tell you what I took from my encounter with his art and my research. I saw a lot of colors that felt like an invasion to my retina, but they were so well organized that the stimulation was not over, but not under as well. A constant flow of a varied palette. My method of observation is to really get on board with the artist’s perspective, with my eyes as prisms. I was walking the same streets he did, smelling the same odours, amazed and drowned by the same targets. When you try so hard to look from someone else’s point of view, you start losing your reference, only to make the prism bigger, a dominant factor in the scene. I think I understand now that the object cannot be separated from the subject, but that’s the beauty of art. The multiplicity of meaning.
“Inspiration is something independent from the moment an artist is creating artwork, in my opinion. It’s part of every moment of life: the way and curiosity you look at the world around you, it’s questioning whatever surrounds you through the passion and burden of life.”
As a writer, I know the concept of a muse as much as I know how outdated that idea is. I asked ALO if he could define what strikes him as inspiration, to which he responded, “Inspiration is something independent from the moment an artist is creating artwork, in my opinion. It’s part of every moment of life: the way and curiosity you look at the world around you, it’s questioning whatever surrounds you through the passion and burden of life. Inspiration is something I constantly have to deal with, and I think it’s also something you feel but also build day by day. Sometimes it’s also trying to use a part of you in order to talk in the name of every soul surrounding you.”
The exhibition is running, if not extended again, until January 23rd. I encourage you to go and discover his work at Saatchi, if you haven’t done so already on the streets of London. The Gallery is open from Monday to Sunday, from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm.
