Lisa Alonzo
Brunswick, Maine
Alonzo's paintings made of piped acrylic have been widely collected and exhibited across the US. Alonzo lives and works in Maine.
MessageAlonzo grew up on a Christmas tree farm in Northern California. She spent her days watching Bob Ross, painting trees and playing sports. She studied design at California State University, Long Beach and painting at the Academy of Art in San Francisco, graduating in 2008. The Artist has shown extensively across the US, including three solo exhibitions with Claire Oliver Galley in New York and numerous art fair appearances. Alonzo now lives and works in Maine with her husband and two young children.
For the last 10 years the Artist has been using her unique painting technique to explore our cultures consumption of information, media or other imagery in pop culture. How can we decipher between what is real and what is an illusion? To physically illustrate this question, Alonzo paints using an acrylic gel medium piped onto the surface using pastry bags and tips- the paint looks like frosting. The end result is intricate and sculptural. The application is pointillistic, often rendering the finished image to be photorealistic, mimicking the pixels we view in media. Her first series using this method examined our relationship with selfies and social media. Alonzo has since explored many other facets within the same concept, including fiat currency, weapons, and whistleblowers.
Statement
Much of our modern lives have become centered around consumption. While we may consume more than our fair share of resources, what I am most interested in is the way we consume information. We are bombarded with a constant stream of information, shaping our opinions and eroding our ability to see objectively. Much of the this data has been manipulated or sugar coated to become palatable. Headlines intentionally mislead and details are lacking. All to attain to more clicks and for faster, easier consumption. Amidst all this- How can we determine what is real?
I create my paintings using cake decorating tools; piping the heavy acrylic medium directly on the surface. The end result is a painting that appears to be made entirely of frosting. The resulting texture of the surface not only engages the audience, but invites the viewer to touch. This facet of the work further calls for an examination into our interaction with technology; the smooth black mirrors we are continuously engaging with are in direct juxtaposition to the complex and varied surface of the paintings.
My work has always questioned our complex relationship with reality. Previous work examined narcissism in the age of the selfie, weapons, currency, and whistle blowers. Currently, I am intrigued by the complexity of information and how it is disseminated and less focused on a particular topic.
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