Alzapiedi Combines Photoshop, Objects and Imagination to Create Original Artwork

Often the meaning of a piece of art depends on what the viewer brings to the experience of viewing it.  Everyone sees the same piece of art a little differently.

No one knows this better than Aldo Alzapiedi.

Alzapiedi, an optician by trade, takes objects he finds and creates artwork from them. He picks up items at garage sales or along the side of the road and combines them to make a new object: a “robot” made from a hubcap, vacuum cleaner and part of a water fountain stands in his living room. 

Alzapiedi also does this digitally. He will import a photograph of Abraham Lincoln into the computer program Photoshop and change the color to create something fresh and new, or apply a filter to create a hazy scene, instead of a crisp, hard-edged one or make a collage using elements from various photographs.

“I can make a whole scene from things from other photos,” Alzapiedi said. “I can create something that wasn’t there just by taking and combining elements from other photos.”

It is a quicker process than creating an original painting using a blank canvas.

“I don’t have the patience any more to paint. It took a while to do whatever you were doing and I never really got what I wanted out of it,” Alzapiedi said. “It was frustrating.”

Alzapiedi grew up in England during World War II. He received a scholarship to study at the Canterbury College of Arts and then attended the London School of Art. He immigrated to the United States in 1960. His artwork was on display at the main branch of the library recently.

“With photography, I can go in there and start working right away and try variations. You can’t do that with painting,” Alzapiedi said. “You pick a road and take it where you want to go. Being self taught, I find out all the errors, but if you follow the straight and narrow, that’s fine, you’ve got to take some side roads every now and then just to find out where they lead."

Alzapiedi enjoys working with color too. His house is filled with light boxes made from various pieces of colored plastic.

His artistic style is rooted in the Impressionist painters.

“Impressionists take the normal and make it a little more what you want it to be,” Alzapiedi said. “You can create something without going into all the fine detail of a painting. They seem to get rid of all the busy stuff and give you only what you need.”

Working digitally affords Alzapiedi the opportunity to use lots of trial and error, something that traditional painters and sculptors often can't do as easily.

“Sometimes, it could be very quick, but other times, I could spend four or five hours,” Alzapiedi said. “Most of the time I can hit one key and get the result I want, but I can go back and undo something if I don't like it. I like to go down one road and then go back and see what I did so I’m always hunting to see what I can get out of images, whether it’s a mood or atmosphere. I know when I’ve go it.”

It is desire that drives Alzapiedi to push the boundaries of his creativity.

“Skill is very important, but artists, they’ve got to have the desire to make something new,” he said.