THE SURREAL WORLD OF ITALIAN ARTIST ALESSANDRO SICIOLDR, SEEMS TO BELONG BOTH IN THE MIDDLEAGES AS IN THE RENAISSANCE. 
MARIE BERTELSEN | ARTICULATE #22 | JAN 2020

The surreal world of Alessandro Sicioldr seems like belonging both in the middle-ages as well as in the renaissance. The portraits of women, or nongendered people, are depicted with pale skin and dark hair and have a gothic feel to it, and one could expect Mona Lisa to appear in a distorted new version with a vibrant red background.

The use of lighting is especially interesting. At times its source seems natural, other times as if coming from a magical source within the objects and subjects. By looking at the artworks, you begin to imagine old stories, fairy tales and folklore. The stories could very well be scary, enlightening and with morals about life. With a long string of words, Sicioldr is as a gothic-medieval surreal painter. Sicioldr mentions Matthias Grünewald as a big influence on his style. Both for being visionary and perhaps more importantly for the many indescribable emotions created in Sicioldr. 

According to the artist himself, the drive behind the artworks are coming from an inner struggle and suffering. From here you can create and ask questions and from there start an artistic journey. For Sicioldr, the purpose of creating paintings is reaching people and not just creating art aimlessly or exclusively for other artists. Sicioldr sees life as being absurd, humans as being impotent but still placed in front of great mysteries. Going beyond the ordinary, you can start to move within and explore images and visions. This is typical for the surreal artists who aimed to distance themselves from the purely rational human. Instead they sought to incorporate dreams and combine both the rational and irrational. If he had to describe it, the ideal is to be slightly unbalanced in a perfectly balanced way. The way of communicating these beliefs and understandings are for Sicioldr done mostly through oil painting. This is due to the material being adaptable, which again can help express, what Sicioldr calls a metamorphic image. Sicioldr also uses charcoal and ink since they allow him to create entire universes through a few lines of ink. In his words, they are humble and cheap materials.

Sicioldr explains how he gets his ideas for his artworks. He explains this through the term of the psychoanalyst Carl Jung. The word ‘individuation’ explains the realization and acknowledgment of being both a rational and irrational human and by having both a subconscious and conscious self. By acquiring this balance, you can have irrational images, but also tell stories by thinking about them with intention. And in this way Sicioldr can choose the subjects, and what he wants to paint. He says, if you can do this, you can find the right composition for the artwork, find the right aesthetic and finally communicate precisely what you want. Practically, what this means, is Sicioldr lets himself be led by spontaneous thoughts and trusting his instincts.

This article about ALESSANDRO SICIOLDR takes part of ARTICULATE #22. Read, download or order your print version of the full publication below

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