Matteo Alfonsi
Photographer, Visual Story
Teller and
Digital/3-D Artist
(image credits: photos/art by Matteo
Alfonsi, Layout/Comp by Kris Swenson)
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Matteo Alfonsi is a
digital visual/multimedia artist. He resides in
Rome, Italy & his visual artwork is rich, dark, intelligent & haunting
with flourishes of dark/goth/fetish elements.
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1. Can you describe your working method &
the mediums you use?
I usually proceed by working out a general concept that leads the
single works of each series as if they were one story’s episode.
Then the images are realized by digital drafting processes that
range from photographic touch-up to 3d drawing.
2. What are your influences & inspirations?
My influences most of all grow out of cinematic suggestions. I’ve
been strongly influenced by Tim Burton and David Lynch’s films, but
some of my influences have also been affected by the latest goth
music, especially its stereotyped elements.
3. Are you influenced by literature? And if so, which
writers/stories inspire you the most?
...Lit is not one of my primary references but surely, Lovecraft’s
restlessness and oneiric ravings and the “divin Marquis” ‘s (Marquis
de Sade) sadistic cynicism have had great impact on my mental
scenery’s shaping. Recently I’ve found out Tim Burton’s tales, a
brainwave!
4. What 3d modeling software do you use?
My collection of work entitled "The Rooms" were all made up with Autocad, but lately I’m using above all 3d Studio Max and
Rhinoceros.
5. Your use of reflections in "The Rooms" is very rich and
creates almost an entirely separate story within each piece. Can you
describe your use of reflections?
The Rooms' reflections discover meaning in their meaningless, their
function is to create an alienating effect due to the fact that they
don’t ever correspond to the real reflection that the objects should
have, the rooms’ physics follow an oneiric and not a scientific
logic.
6. There is a sense of dark/faery-tale, other-worldliness to your
work, and each piece tells part of a story. If you combined the
thoughts behind them all & wrote one story, how would the story go?
There’s not a proper tale considered as a consistent and
sequential story; every episode exacerbates a more general
system’s themes, made up with anxieties, citations and meaningless.
7. How would it end?
As it doesn't have a beginning, so it can’t have an ending either:
situations run after each other and withdraw into themselves
potentially endlessly, just like the surface of a moebius’ tape or a
hypercube’s cells.
8. Each of The Rooms tells it's own story, (referencing the Alice
in Wonderland story with symbols & imagery). Each room darkly lit,
but shiny white reflective walls - some with a variety of tools on
the wall & figures with various props...doll heads, lollipops, some
political inuendo, crosses...
Can you describe some of the "room" space, the icons & the meaning
behind them?
...Each one of those spaces has the significance of a placeless
place, a sort of four-dimensional prison which meaning has to be
pursued particularly in their oneiric involvement.
They don’t follow a deterministic logic, but they admit several
interpretations - every tool has its own symbolic
meaning, often unconscious, that can have various senses or
different importance, depending on who is viewing it.
9. Thanks for the interview. Is there anything else you would
like to mention?
Thank you for your interest about my work, no, I have nothing to
add, I think you’ve reached all the main matters.
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>> Interview by
Kris Swenson for Art Anomaly
Find Matteo Alfonsi online at:
