10 Questions with Alberto Ballocca

Alberto Ballocca (b. 1993 - Turin, Northern Italy) is a contemporary artist whose background is linked to sensitive factors. Before the beginning of his activity and artistic career, Alberto self-developed an interest in ancient and archaic cultures, roots of the contemporary world arts, philosophies, and the natural dimension, specifically the natural corporal approach of life: the ancient Greek concept of "Physis." Alberto's background does not have the foundations in the artistic field; having grown up in his father's workshop, who is a mechanic and iron craftsman, his technique was born and developed in a personal and subjective methodology that finds its point of reference in maximum expansion in art. In fact, his breakthrough into the artistic space was initially influenced by deep emotional impulses and creative logic.

He quit his job in 2018 and started to achieve great feedback from the art world, being exhibited at Italian fairs, and group shows in New York and London and now working in collaboration with different renowned artists, painters, and photographers, uprising galleries, and in the NFT space as 1 of 1 phygital artist.

Alberto works with acrylics, self-made natural pigments, sprays, oil pastels, oil, and more unconventional mediums and supports, both in painting, sculptures, drawing, and private or public wall paintings, continually seeking a bridge between the abstract and the figurative approaches. "Art cracks emotional impulses, balancing energies and letting cultural diversities get collimated and unified within each other!" he asserts.

Now, think about the general concept of the word 'belief', a noun of the English verb 'to believe', and imagine you are staring in front of an Egyptian temple engraving that reports symbols of a bee and a leaf; you are looking at two distinct images, that, once united, loose their direct and figurative meanings and become, precisely, belief; an idea. Differently from alphabetic languages, with which we are more accustomed to thinking and writing, hieroglyphs are literally pieces of art; every single glyph is an artistic word, a layered image of thought, spiritually speaking. His art is a thin line between leaf assonance and life, balancing a painting or a sculpture process, acrylics or oil usages.

"Building bridges is my state of mind; in terms of being aware of not controlling what I'm learning or facing, but just dancing with it and letting it flows freely once I understand part of the structure I'm moving through and connect distant points, that's the only access I have to understand what appears to be different and new to me and not end up within a sort of dangerous uniformity."

The role of the artist in society is society itself, a sort of self/universal connection. In fact, the dominant underlying component of Alberto's work is the cyclicality within which various symbolic elements reappear continuously in different forms and shapes, upgraded by his awareness of a looped memory recollection. "I have to know how to do something good for people, but that requires self-awareness and a creative approach to life in general."

www.albertoballocca.com | @albertoballocca

INTERVIEW

First of all, introduce yourself to our readers. Who are you, and how did you start experimenting with images?

I'm Alberto Ballocca, a contemporary artist based in Turin, northern Italy, born in May 1993. My beginning of artistic experimentation is linked to a need for catharsis and a drawing vocation that I started to follow seriously at the age of 19 circa, but I remember I made my first realistic sketches when I was a child. I have always been very sensitive to sensory impulses, sometimes endowed with uncontrollable emotionality; living life as a perpetual love trauma requires artistic disciplines, and art has been and still is my salvation but don't get me wrong, I don't think, nor I do experience art as something exclusively therapeutic because for me is the power to make sense of a mental apparition, a manifestation of unconscious energy so, no less real than what is seen on the outside, let's say concrete world!

You didn't have a background in art specifically. How did you evolve into the artist you are today? How would you define yourself as an artist today?

Yes, it's true, I've never attended art schools or academies, and I come from a family that is not related to the traditional art world, but my father is an iron craftsman and a motorcycle mechanic, so I've always felt the need to assemble things. I've also some memories of my grandfather being really skilled in realistic charcoal drawings, and this is also another family gift I've always been aware of. My mom has always been warm as well as liberal with me, giving space for my emotions even when "normal" parents tend to worry too much about their son's instability eh eh. My artistic evolution is linked to my constant dedication to drawing and painting, attending good and inspiring places, visiting museums and galleries, talking to artists and women's way of thinking about life or being aware of simple things dynamics, whether they are art related or not. When I create, being an artist, for me, is learning how to jive with muses!

Sacred Roots, Acrylics, Oil pastels and Sprays on canvas, 150 x 120 cm, 2023 © Alberto Ballocca

In your statement, you mention ancient cultures and philosophies as sources of inspiration. How do they influence your current practice?

Well, the relation between my studies about ancient and archaic cultures and my art practices is similar to that between axioms and theorems. One deduces the other, but it is not explained with words; it is perceived within the body, mind, and spirit. In my practice, the transcendental dimension of an "archetypal" ancient element manifests itself within my gestures and determines the unconscious and universal memories of my ancestors. I can provide different examples: when we say "anima" in Italian, in English, "soul," we may not know that we are thinking (abstracting) about an ancient Greek concept that translates as "psyche," which doesn't conceptually mean soul, by derivation, but "breath" so we unconsciously think about breath while we speak about soul, that is a body related conception; so, my current practice can be seen as an abstraction of breathing itself if based on this archaic and fundamental spiritual/philosophical conception. It appears within the composition of the work, whether it is a painting, a sculpture or a work on paper. It's literally a cognitive process!

Why did you choose those specifically? What do they represent for you, and what do you think they can teach to contemporary society?

I believe they chose me at the very beginning of my studies, and I subsequently followed this path through and through! I have always been deeply fascinated by ancient frescoes, bas-reliefs, architectures such as complexes of Leptis Magna, Karnak, the majestic Egyptian temples of Amon, Nefertiti, classical Greek or Minoan "Taurokathapsia" relief in Crete or the "Hermes of Praxiteles" statue in Athens.
I think that our society, like the highest leaf of a tree, has in itself properties of the underground seed, still has that ancient part in itself, like each individual, and therefore I think that everyone should let themselves be fascinated and why not, overwhelmed, by this ancient charm. What we will really learn from this, I think, is the development of an in-depth critical sense with respect to all the colors of the world's contemporary cultures. To give an example, my latest sculpture reference: "Alef." Ancient Phoenicians pronounced the word "Alef" to say "Ox," but they wrote it as the symbol of the Ox' head, so now we have the letter A in the Western alphabet because it's the initial of the word Alef. 99% of these "critical-key elements" of our contemporary society are enclosed within these ancient and archaic mechanisms! Furthermore, another important aspect is the Natural dimension because, similarly to my conception of art, nature seems to present no hierarchies for those who want to know!

Physis - Installation view © Alberto Ballocca

Let's talk about your work. What is your main aim as an artist?

Nothing is discovered, but everything is remembered; in fact, learning is remembering "anamnesis," and what you learn on the small scale is also on the big one. This concept represents for me the connecting bridge between the sensations I get while studying elements I'm passionate about and the way I "extract" them during creative processes in my studio, with good music and my open heart. Nature is simple as it appears, infinitely complex as it works, and my aim is to emulate natural elements to transfer a message, giving a renewed way to think about nature in relation to the corporal and inner dimensions necessary to understand the outside dynamics. The so-called timeless "Physis ."Art has survived since the time of cavemen and is about to show, prove, and not impose. Nature is an immutable background that neither man nor god did, and it is necessary, so I tend to say this, "Hey, the obvious is at the grocery store or on television, not in the real world! Take a closer look; I have something to say that you've never heard, and if you've heard it, even better because you may not have heard it that way!"

What messages do you ultimately want to convey with your work?

My message is a fertile pun, a statement inspired by an Aristotelian quote: Art is the first act of a natural body having creativity at power. Each piece of art of mine is like a mnemonic door, as well as every single Egyptian hieroglyph; a metaphysical transcription of a thought, a language, or a set of wordless and timeless expressions generated and connected by a creative act. Pronounce the word bee-leaf (belief) and remember that none of these two words expressed within that single one is conceptually related to the bee itself or to the leaf itself. That's the message between my layers of paint overlapping and the finished piece itself. A single event or an event that brings together a multitude of other ones, i.e., a research element useful for discovering the next one! During my creative processes, I experience time as just a perception, and that is like a bridge between what is inscribed and what has yet to be written within my lifetime throughout my inner timeline. The ultimate purpose of one work, I believe, is to start the next one, so practicing practice is what I preach; the message is already within the passionate collector, and I just have to open it and disclose new meanings!

You work with several different techniques, from painting to sculpture. What is your creative process like?

When I start painting, I draw freely, looking for precise or deforming anatomical proportions, sometimes with references, other times by just referring to what I see within myself, so taking into account the chemistry of the medium I'm using and the support. I work mostly with acrylics, pastels, and sprays; I create pigments trying to emulate the creative processes of ancient artists, pulverizing bricks, using binders, silicones, and many more unconventional mediums that create juicy material effects on the surface. I superimpose layers of various mediums, keeping figuration and abstraction balanced on the composition letting energy flow free. According to this balancing purpose, I often sublimate small works on paper into larger format canvases, as I've been doing lately, and the result is excellent. I also hang out with a DJ friend with whom I produce and paint while he makes music in his recording studio, and this is another very important input for creating my works! On a sculptural level, I tend to emulate the anatomy of my body, touching parts I want to create or change; I follow creative impulses and dose them on the basis of the result I want to obtain. This is also related to the concept of "Physis" I was talking about in the previous answer. Sometimes I also study on paper the b-dimensional element of something that I realize generates the third-dimensional side.

You already had significant experiences, both in Italy and internationally. What do you think about the art community and market?

Yes, I have exhibited my work in group shows in Turin, New York, London, Rome throughout time, and soon Amsterdam; I have ongoing important collaborations with international artists and musicians, but the experience is always to be assembled, and the journey is steep! Regarding the art community, I think that things are changing radically, more than they changed in the past as history tells us in the great periods of artistic revolutions and, in my opinion, this is extremely positive, because everyone can dedicate themselves and hope to be able to live with art, in any category, or even just can communicate something without having to use words, I mean, it is definitely a revolution! I also have to say that thanks to this global change, I have come to know crazy majestic oriental and African artists such as El-Annatsui, Jongsuk Yoon, Lawrence Weiner or Ambera Wellman, and more, who inspire me a lot. About the market, well, let's say that I am perfecting an unsinkable boat!

Braking Symbols, House Paint, Acrylics, Sprays, Charcoal and Collages on raw canvas, 95 x 75 cm, 2023 © Alberto Ballocca

God Laughs, Acrylics, Dyes, Pigments, Charcoal, Collages, House Paint and Sprays on canvas, 170 x 150 cm, 2023 © Alberto Ballocca

Is there anything else you would like to experiment with? Have you tried NFTs, Crypto art, or AI-generated art? And what is your stance in this regard?

Yes, in November 2021, I made and sold different paintings as 1 of 1 NFTs, and now I have some ongoing collaborations and selected works for sale as NFTs. Sometimes I use Photoshop to create drafts which I subsequently work like traditional works on canvas. I also complete some of my digital works after having started them on canvases. In the future, I will implement some AI functionality in my work to see what will happen in the composition! Unfortunately, the speculation of such a powerful medium seems to be a bit like Prometheus' fire; the Greek myth speaks for itself, but what I know for sure is that we are talking in terms of computing power and not creative deductions. My stance is curiosity as well as my hope is to see cooperation between cultures, historically correct and true event explanations, and archeology evolution thanks to this technology! Today we're seeing robots making Van Goghs as if it is nothing, but when the machine makes it, it channels all the computing power to the whole work, and every single stroke is a fraction of the calculation sufficient to convert a preset into that given shape, color or small stroke that looks like acrylic, oil, spray, etc. I do believe that human abstraction power is far superior in terms of polarization power because there is no total absolutism linked to a singular-tract-absolutism within consciousness, but always a mediation between the two about the whole work.

Finally, what are you working on now, and what are your plans for the future? Anything exciting you can tell us about?

Two weeks ago, one of my works called 'Kàtagma' entered the collection of the Museo Materiali Minimi d'Arte Contemporanea (MMMAC) of Paestum-Capaccio, the first museum I entered with my art, so I cannot describe this feeling. I am working on different works on paper for my collectors, different paintings and sculptures inspired by the corporal conception of Nature mixed with Greek and Egyptian astronomy and mythology. I'm working in cooperation with an Airbnb agency in Turin, which chose two of my 2023 works, now on hold for tourists who want to enjoy the city culture and love to collect and invest in art. Collaborative representation with an uprising gallery in Amsterdam, and I've also rented a new small house for tools that were used by a farmer on the hill behind my house that I will now use as a secondary studio, surrounded by green vegetation! My plan for the future is to keep showing my works abroad and expand my network of collaborations in order to gain time to continue my research, experiment, and field my ideas with more national and international artists and keep on learning new stuff every day; let's say, unite my message with that of others and bring truth and knowledge to human beings! And then, what I like the most about the future is not knowing what I deserve, and already being interviewed by you is a great achievement for me!

Artist’s Talk

Al-Tiba9 Interviews is a promotional platform for artists to articulate their vision and engage them with our diverse readership through a published art dialogue. The artists are interviewed by Mohamed Benhadj, the founder & curator of Al-Tiba9, to highlight their artistic careers and introduce them to the international contemporary art scene across our vast network of museums, galleries, art professionals, art dealers, collectors, and art lovers across the globe.

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