Alejandro Monge has achieved a brilliant career in a very short time, creating a handful of images that define it: powerful and disturbing faces, inscribed on a black background. The work suggests baroque influences and approaches a hyper-realism that does not exclude the gloomy. Specially commissioned as part of the International Festival for Business, Fallout Factory is currently playing host to ‘Spanish Pavilion’, a new and exciting collaboration between Fallout Factory and overseas Spanish galleries. ten million hardbacks caught up with the maverick Spanish artist on the eve of his Liverpool exhibition.
10mh: Alejandro, what inspires you?
Inspiration comes day by day, but I have better inspirations the bad days than the good ones, makes me feel more, I can go deeper in my creativity.
10mh:Â Which artists have influenced you?
I think that Caravaggio is my favourite.
10mh: Describe your work in five words?
Very, very, very, very dark.
10mh: What do you want the viewer to feel about your work?
I’d like that people feel my works as something real, in three dimensions.
10mh: Do you have a favourite piece?
Always it is the last one. Because in there are my last feelings.
10mh: What advice would you give young artists?
Work, work and more work, because the more you work the better paintings you get. But at the same time you have to train your mind as well, because the ability of art is in your mind not in your hand. The good inspiration will come after 999 bad ideas.
Exceptional pieces of art take the everyday, the mundane and forces you to look at it again. It lifts the subject to another plane. We all look at each other, daily in cafés, bars, even at home with reality rubbish on the TV. Alejandro’s canvases make you really appreciate the subtle beauty of the human being. Blonde beard, shadow silhouettes of facial features, always with a warmth and deep affection for the sitter.
The collection has a distinctive style in the way you can immediately identify it as his work, like Lucien Freud, Tamara De Lempicka and Francis Bacon. When you see the work, you know it is the artists’ distinctive style.
I’ve seen quite a few exhibitions in my 36 years, I’ve encountered self-proclaimed artists who do not follow the Stanislavski dictum, which is essential for any creative:
One must love art and not the concept of oneself in art.
Alejandro clearly loves his work – passion and authenticity splash right off his canvas.
I have always loved Spain and her cultural exports, Pedro Almodóvar and tapas. Now I have another thing to admire about this great country. I am exceptionally excited about this artist’s future creative projects, please watch this space, one day Alejandro Monge is going to paint his way into the history sketch book of contemporary art.
Fallout Factory, 1 June – 31 July 2014 | Tuesday – Saturday 11am – 5pm