9/13: Alessia Iannetti – In the Footsteps of My Shadow

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Alessia Iannetti “In the Footsteps of My Shadow”
Showing with Zoe Lacchei, Aaron Bo Heimlich, and Renee French 
October 2 – November 1, 2015
Artist reception: Friday, October 2nd; 8-11PM

La Luz de Jesus Gallery
4633 Hollywood Blvd,
Los Angeles, CA 90027
www.laluzdejesus.com

IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF MY SHADOW – by Barbara Veschi

I have recently read about a painter of the early Sixteenth Century strolling around the countryside in Northern Italy on board of an astonishing carriage. It was fully decorated with all sorts of figures and landscapes he was able to paint.

When, after a few days, Alessia kindly asked me to write something about her work, my mind immediately went to that very image. I tried to imagine her beautifully decorated carriage, full of dangerous, bright beauties, of birds, butterflies, luxuriant vegetation, shadows and lights – equally dangerous, imbued with blood and pulsing wounds.

The peasants staring at Bertolino’s colorful carriage – from the book La Chimera, by  Sebastiano Vassalli -, must feel something similar to those who admire  the works of art of a young artist as Alessia is. Her artworks engender a sort of dizziness – of restless spell. They wrap you up in a fragile, though powerful, cobweb. In the meantime, they urge you to tirelessly explore the rational – and yet magic! – accuracy in every detail.

This kind of rapture can keep you in a sort of hypnosis for an indefinite period of time. And yet, even a furtive glance to her works of art – and, if possible, to the artist herself -, would make you wonder which enchanted kingdom she comes from.

Whatever you may think, Alessia Iannetti lives in our same world. She was born in Italy, in a small town in Tuscany, Carrara, in 1985. Since her childhood, she has always loved drawing. Her father, Vittorio, supported her in this spontaneous passion. He himself used to draw for her, instilling in his daughter interest and fascination for what is mysterious and unknown. A teaching that would never leave her. In Carrara, Alessia studied at the Academy of Fine Arts with Professor Omar Galliani. Discipline and rigor, combined with the fascination of what we may refer to as the Romantic and dark epopee ,from its highest peaks to the more modern and common forms of it. Her work is a precious composition, rich of hidden quotes and suggestions. In such a fertile soil, inspired by cinema, arts, music, Alessia keeps modeling and transforming her creations and creatures. The more she draws and paints, improving her technical abilities, the more she strongly delineates one of the core of her art; that absolute ease with which reality, obsessively pursued in every detail, intertwines with an endless, other dimension. The latter is so strongly vivid that, in the end, turns out to be as true as the former.

All the above is clearly visible in the new series entitled “In the Footsteps of my Shadow”. Here the artist wants to originally reexamine the classical vampire myths.

Taking inspiration from the Gothic fiction par excellence, Alessia has reinterpreted such a universal myth for the benefit of her beloved subjects. Always suspended between good and evil, they are now rewarded with this new seal of immortality.

They are girls in their innocent lace dresses, with rosebuds in their hair, colorful butterflies, and leaves. Or even Lolitas trapped in their dark, Dorothy-Valens-like sheath dresses, musing on their mysteriously bloody hands. Or little girls whose smiles hide extremely delicate, yet pointed, canines.

All this reminds us, again and again, that nothing is merely like it seems. It reminds us that the most luminous face may conceal the most cruel and unexpected chasm.

Who among you would not let these new Carmillas and Vespertilias in? Who would not host these tiny and terribly delicious guests?

Evil comes by chance and so we meet our shadow. When we experience the dark side each of us carries within ourselves, nothing is like it appeared before. Our luminous reality reveals a dreadful, perverse world. It is a world as dark and gloomy as a thorny wood where no sunbeam could pass. For good is never absolute, nor is evil. They coexist, indissolubly bound together. Through my new series of artworks – ten, unreleased, small format works made with graphite, watercolors, acrylic on paper -, I have elaborated feelings of death, panic, fear and distrust. I wanted to represent evil, painted on innocent faces. The portrayed subjects emerge from a natural landscape, plunged into darkness. The only light comes from tiny, distant stars. Dualism dominates every creature. Darkness and light hold each soul simultaneously. Cruelty lies behind candid and childish smiles. Female characters are apparently innocent girls and children almost vanishing in their candid halo. And yet they possess a dual, evil nature. Posing like princesses on their thrones of branches, they are creatures sent to drain, hiding their sharp teeth behind gentle smiles. They play hide-and-seek behind trunks whose cavities are deformed into dreadful faces. Some remain silent, hidden among the leaves like wild beasts lurking. Others hide their crimes in the dark, in the middle of the night. When the body and its shadow merge into one entity.

I dedicate this exhibition to the memory of my Father. And to Our Shadow – Alessia Iannetti