OF LOVE LONGING
Portraits by Alex Venezia
Alex Venezia is an artist whose portraits radiate both love and longing, in quiet scenes that find an exquisite balance between serene stillness and rousing emotion. Inspired from an early age by the work of Caravaggio and a poster he saw of John W. Waterhouse’s Lady of Shalott, 1888, Venezia’s own poetic compositions are an unmistakable nod to such historical figures, as well as other masters of intimate scenes, like the Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershøi, whose subdued, haunting interiors reflect similar emotions of longing and loneliness. Yet, Venezia’s portraits are distinctly modern, both imaginative and full of emotional storytelling, and often inspired by the love and affection shared with his family and friends.
As a rising star in the world of representational art, last year proved to be a very busy year for the artist, starting in January with the unveiling of two new works at the LA Art Show for Arcadia Contemporary, a gallery with whom Venezia has developed a close working relationship. Then in April, he won the 1st Place Painting and the People’s Choice Award at the Portrait Society’s annual conference for another of his works titled, Haunting. To cap off an exciting year, Venezia celebrated the debut of his solo show Sentimental Works at Arcadia Contemporary in September. The nearly sold-out show, comprised a series of new paintings, including Sisters, Braids, Sketching, Returning Home and At Rest.
The painting Sisters is a perfect example of Venezia’s superb talent for capturing such tender family moments. The work depicts two sisters, both dressed in graceful white gowns, standing close together with the younger sister resting her head softly on her elder sibling’s shoulder. Both women seem lost in their own thoughts, seemingly in two different mental worlds, yet, they are so physically close that their long, brown locks are twisted together at the center of the canvas, nearly indiscernible from one another. With this intimate pose,
Venezia evokes feelings of comfort and support, as well as sadness and grief, and that all too familiar desire for a shoulder to lean on.
A feature that shines through in all of Venezia’s work is his meticulous attention to fabrics in varying colors and textures. In Braids, the artist depicts a young woman sitting in a chair wearing a chocolatey brown, buttonedup wool coat with a matching fur collar, while aimlessly pulling apart one of her long dark braids. Posing her with one leg curled up in the chair, the artist cleverly draws your gaze downward to where the woman’s opaque, black tights are thinly stretched over her bent knees, revealing a subtle trace of flesh beneath. Braids is a painting that started off as a live demo for a video he shot at East Oaks Studio, based in Cary, North Carolina, where Venezia works alongside artists Michael Klein, Louis Carr and his wife and artist, Divya Melaluca.
Another work, Sketching, is a carefully composed portrait of his friend and artist Susan Lyon, dressed in an elegantly embroidered skirt and sitting in a patch of shadowy grass, with a sketchbook held tight in her arms. “I was lucky enough to have [Susan] pose for me when she and her husband, Scott Burdick, visited the studio last year,” Venezia explains. “For this painting, I was strongly influenced by the works of 19th-century
French painter Pascal Dagnan-bouveret, and other naturalists to start painting the figure outdoors. This one being particularly inspired by the painting Breton Women by Bouveret.”
Venezia describes Sketching as “a real challenge” for him to paint, because he was working with certain elements outside of his usual comfort zone. He thought of abandoning the painting multiple times, but instead he stuck with it, spending extra time reconstructing her hands until he achieved the desired result. The finished work, a highlight of the series, reveals nothing of this struggle, which is a true testament to Venezia’s remarkable skill and dedication to his craft.
In a most-tender scene, Returning Home presents a self-portrait of the artist and his wife, Divya, stretched out on a couch with her lovingly cradling his head to her breast. Again, in this work, we see a superb rendering of black fabric, in the detail of Divya’s dress and a matching black cloth draped over the couch’s arm. “For this painting, I was feeling inspired to use myself as the model for a narrative, partly because of the painter Odd Nerdrum, who does this a lot in his own work,” Venezia shares. He and Divya had studied with Nerdrum in Norway for two months back in 2017.
“The initial spark for a painting can start in a few different ways,” he furthers. “An idea will come to me, either randomly or through deliberately trying to think of one, and then I’ll find the location, model, clothing, props, etc. to attempt to bring it to fruition. Or I happen to see a moment in real life that has many of the ingredients of a good painting, so I jot it down in words as well as I can or scribble down a sketch. If the model is someone you’re close and comfortable with, then sometimes ideas flow well in the moment.”
Lately Venezia, like many other artists, has been finding ways to stay busy while at home, which has involved taking time to paint outdoors and completing several new portraits including, Young Woman in White. With his trademark
sensitivity to soft light and luminescent skin tones, in this work Venezia depicts a young woman in profile with her golden-copper curls of hair drifting delicately around her bare neck. Looking at this painting, and others such as
At Rest, it’s hard not to think of an artist like Bouguereau and his bucolic genre scenes, yet here again Venezia offers such a fresh and heartfelt interpretation of these timeless classical motifs.
Primarily a self-taught artist, Venezia has studied with many of today’s top representational painters, including Nerdrum, Colleen Barry, Daniel Sprick and Jeff Hein. At 27, he has certainly achieved a lot for such a young artist, and he is always eager to share what he has learned with other aspiring painters. “Always be incredibly honest with yourself about your skill level,” Venezia offers as advice. “Set your goals far out into the future, then be realistic as possible on how to achieve these goals. I was never interested in the politics or strategy of gaining a career, so while I was learning I was always thinking, ‘If the work is good enough, they can’t ignore it.’” One could argue that he has more than achieved that goal, as his paintings are quite frankly impossible to ignore.