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Alberto Pazzi’s pink obsession

Photos by Michelle LoBianco


Alberto Pazzi has an obsession. Not only with heavy black lines and contours, but with the symbolic color pink. The Mexican artist, who once went viral on the internet stratosphere after a family portrait showed him dressed as a clown, involves comedic attitude in his illustrations and his straightforward drawings on pink paper. At the dawn of the decade’s grand finale, Pazzi has taken the task of pushing to complete new work in a short period of time for his upcoming exhibition. “The show is going to be 20 new paintings that I’ve been working on in the last couple of months, but mostly the whole thing was making 20 paintings in the last month so I can just show ideas that were just laying around and I never put on canvas before,” shares Pazzi. The show will take place at Bushwick restaurant, La Lonchería, a place where Pazzi’s presence attracts underground musicians and artists of the area, as he is then their personal purveyor of luxury in the shape of cheap drinks. A transaction too good to deny, and for that, through social media (in this case Instagram), for example, Pazzi’s face would show up every now and then, jovially reacting to the companionship his faithful friends and customers bring.

Identifying Pazzi’s work is not too hard. His modern and simplistic approach, and of course the alienation of all colors, most of the time, except for pink has allowed him to find within the medium a purpose and the opportunity to create longevity off his work. While reflecting on the upcoming show, he concluded the ideas were ready to “see the light.” “Half of them are new illustrations and that I’ve worked in the last couple of weeks, and the other half is stuff that I found in my studio. It’s a cool way to just show them around. Feels like a good time to do it because these pieces are still relevant. It’s funny because you find drawings that you made four years ago, and you never really used them and then you go, ‘This is kind of a good idea.’ The best judge is time, for art, I think. Just finding these illustrations, and sketches I did a while ago… it’s cool to see that they still resonate, and I can still use them for this new exhibition,” tells Pazzi.

 

The concept of the exhibition is around a quote he first saw on the cover of a jazz album by Gary McFarland called “Today.” The quote reads, “There are no edges, only places where things meet”. To him, it is an important approach to his life. “It makes me feel like things happen at the right place, at the right time. A lot of the people you meet and the situations that you find yourself in, at some point it will make sense to you, but when it happens everything just falls into place perfectly. I really wanted to do this show because I had the urge and I was eager to show these ideas that were laying over there and I just couldn’t wait,” expressed Pazzi. Even though he had a solo show this past year, Pazzi “still wanted to do something by the end of the year and didn’t want to wait.” “It was like if I already have this, I am ready to go and do it again. It’s the first time ever that I have two shows in the same year. I think it was important, I felt my hands were ticklish and my head felt effervescent with ideas that I just wanted to put [out],” shared Pazzi. After pitching the ideas for the exhibition to his boss and getting the final approval, he realized how perfect the place is to present this new line of paintings. ”It totally makes sense because it’s a place that I totally cherish and I spend a lot of time there. It all happened very impulsively, one day to another. And I put my challenge of ‘I am going to do 20 paintings in one month’, even though it’s kind of crazy because I have to make one painting every two days. But I realized it was a good challenge to devote all my time to do it. It’s the first time that I am doing everything — curating, taking care of the lighting, picking the pieces — so I am keeping myself pretty busy making it happen,” he expresses. The artist feels elated and excited about how the painting are coming along. “I feel like I embraced the style that I’ve been working on for years, like I am obsessed with pink. I feel like I finally embraced it and surrender to the pink and I really feel it. I’m just going to go all the way and explore these subjects that I’ve been working on for the past couple of years. It’s going to be a fun show. There’s, definitively, pride in how these pieces are coming along.”

The pink obsession started around 2 years ago, when Pazzi started completing drawings on a block of pink paper he had bought at a Staples. “I was just doing sketches regularly and I realized that’s what I was doing. There’s a specific shade of pink that I was really attracted to and I started becoming obsessed with. After that everything I saw was pink. At that time, I was working at this studio with an artist called John Wesley,” he adds. John Wesley is a legendary pop artist from the 60’s and somehow, Pazzi ended up working with him at his studio in Dumbo. A major figure in the pop art movement in the 60’s and 70’s, Pazzi ended up assisting Wesley and getting an up close and personal experience under the tutelage of the contemporary painter. “Pop art is probably the category that I feel more comfortable to put my art in. Meeting him was one of the highlights of my life in New York City,” expresses Pazzi. “He’s like 90 years old. Somehow, by the crazy things that happen in New York, I ended up assisting in his studio. I got to see up close all his work. I was euphoric that I got to be in his studio. This was a guy they showed you in art school. Being close to his paintings and stuff was a massive influence in my style. Without knowing it, I really learned a lot about art handling and the process about making a piece. I learned a lot him. His color palette was very similar to what I’m doing right now. It all came together around that time, where I found myself finding a new style that I, right now, fully embrace,” gushes Pazzi.

 

Now, Pazzi’s obsession dances between primitive nude body shapes and silhouettes, and “boobs.” He also is inclined to dogs and clowns. “I feel very comfortable going around those subjects. It’s a mixture of humor and romance. It’s a romantic illusion, which is my source of inspiration. Always romance. That’s part of the process of what I do and now I feel like I come to terms to really embracing it. I really feel the pink,” confides Pazzi.

 

Pazzi has been perplexed by art from an early age. “I’ve been influenced by different artists from different movements. When I was a kid my mom used to have in the kitchen a poster of [Henri] Toulouse-Lautrec, who is sort of like the father of graphic design,” he shares. The French artist’s impressionistic take made an impact on a young Pazzi. His parents noticed the inclination he had for art, which led them to give him books and even enroll him in art classes. At this age Pazzi also recognized that he truly enjoyed the appraisal that came after finishing a piece. “It was always celebrated in my house. I would make a drawing of my parents and my brothers at 10 a.m. waking up, drooling saliva on the pillow, and it was funny, and my mom would celebrate it. It would make me want to make more drawings. I was like, ‘I’m good at something so I should keep doing it.’ It was very cartoonish. One moment people told me [about] of that time — my dad used to work at an ink factory, he would sort of babysit me. He would take me to work for hours and hours and all I had to entertain myself was blank plain paper an ink. And he was like you know what for 7 hours all you have is this, entertain yourself. I would draw all the workers, and the machines. Without knowing, he was encouraging me to draw just to keep me entertain.

 

“I started to develop this really passion for drawing. In school even I would draw my teachers and my classmates just for a laugh. It was always this retribution or recognition of “you are funny.” I like humor in art a lot. They put me into class and I really hated it, because they made us draw fruit and realistic drawings,” shared Pazzi.

 

For Alberto, art is not about imitating reality, but about creating your own. A palpable reaction that later manifested when he moved to New York. “New York City was calling me. I didn’t know anyone here. I didn’t have a single friend, but I was like I need to go,” confesses Pazzi, “It was a very impulsive decision, this was like seven years ago. I had this conversation with this photographer in my hometown. We were smoking weed and having coffee in the main plaza and I was telling him how unhappy I was with my college, the mentality of my hometown, and he was the one who told me, “You’re 21 just got to New York… explore, experience and you can always come back if you don’t like it,” he adds. Pazzi’s idea revolved on just being in New York for a couple of months, and “if I don’t like it, I’ll be back and finish my dumb school or whatever but the first day that I got here I was asleep at the airport and I didn’t know anyone.” He remembered he had a “ friend of a friend of a friend” who lived in Astoria (Queens), and “I thought that Manhattan was New York, and Brooklyn and Queens were inside Manhattan, I thought Brooklyn was a small little neighborhood I didn’t realize it was a huge city, you know?” shares Pazzi. “Just by asking around I got to this dudes house, and I was like listen I’m a friend of a friend can I just crash on your couch for tonight or a couple of nights and then he was like, “yeah sure man”. He was so nice, honestly. Those two days that I crashed with him we became friends and he was like, “You know what if you want you can crash until the end of the month.” That was very nice of him and those two weeks gave me time to find a job and figure out how the subway works and the geography. I was like ‘holy shit Brooklyn is huge!’ I knew right then the first day I was like, I belonged here; you know like I’m not fucking coming back. I told my friends, my parents, I told my girlfriend, everyone, ‘I’m coming back in a couple months don’t worry about it.’ I got here and I got off at Times Square or something and I looked around at the buildings and I was like, ‘Nope, I’m not coming back. Sorry dad, sorry mom, bye. And ever since then I just have been very lucky that I’ve found a lot of people that have helped me. There’s a lot of people to be grateful for. That’s the whole thing about this exhibition around this quote, “there are no edges only places where things meet” It makes me think like somehow we’re destined to… you know people come into your life in an exact moment and when they do, not just people, like jobs, experiences or heartbreaks or stuff like that, they come to you when you are ready for them and it feels sometimes like apocalyptic, or you feel super depressed, but then you realize it was necessary for you to be where you are right now. Every little decision, or big decision,  that we make brought us where we are right now. And that’s a very frightening thing because you know it makes you feel vulnerable, but also, it’s kind of cool to know that, looking back to all these wild years,” tells Pazzi.

“I love painting. That’s what I want to do. I love the craft. I love getting my hands dirty. If I could drink the paint and make all my organs colorful, I would. I love being around art supplies. That’s my element,” tells Pazzi. Making art for the sake of making art is the only thing Pazzi is committed to. Even dropping out of La Salle University in Mexico, made him more serious about his commitment with art. After that, Pazzi worked in California at a pizza spot. He saved enough money and traveled to Paris. His experience in France opened his mind to seeing art as a career he could pursuit. “It made me feel more confident,” he shares. “You really have to believe that what you do is valuable and what you do is unique. If you don’t believe that there’s no reason to start all that. If you’re going to go, just go all the way,” he adds.

 

One of the things he learned while working with Wesley was to keep a very specific palette and to be careful with the line. “When people see it, [you want them] to know that it’s you,” he shares. “When you start, you are influenced by so many things that you absorbed and you start to try to imitate your heroes. You try to be in the same frequency that they were, and you’re younger and things kick you harder,” he continues.

 

Ultimately, Pazzi aims to reach more people with his bold silhouettes and pink explosive, minimalistic images. “You can just see an image and feel touched by it,” he expresses. “The whole reason I make art is for human connection. Nobody wants to be alone, and to make art is a way to not feel alone. It applies to painting, to music, to poetry. It’s just connection to people,” he shares.

 

Pazzi’s power move is art. The fact he holds his galloping paint brush as a medium for human connection, makes him realize that when people say they do art for themselves, he just thinks its bullshit. “Everybody is looking for recognition and validation, it just feels nice when someone else recognizes your work,” he adds, “A lot of being an artist is being at the right place, at the right time. Having courage and discipline. Talent is not even the most important thing.” The only way for him, to be an artist, is to be “brave. I’m not a believer in the concept of inspiration. It’s about getting up early and start drawing. Draw until you’re fucking tired. Sometimes the ideas will come and sometimes the won’t. you have to love the craft. Do art for the sake of just doing it.”

 

Pazzi’s upcoming exhibition will take place on Thursday, December 19th. The opening reception is at 6PM over at La Lonchería in Bushwick.



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