| ___________________________________________________________________________________ | ||||||
| Home (Entry) |
|
Method | Teaching | Biography | Contact: aldolira@aldolira.com | |
Aldo Lira is a painter of contemporary narrative figurative works. He received his MFA, Painting at the New York Academy of Art in 2003 where he studied with Steven Assael, Vincent Desiderio and Ted Schmidt, among others. He received his BFA from Syracuse University. In addition he studied drawing at the Art Students' League of New York and with James Childs at the Drawing Academy of the Atlantic. While living in New York City he worked as an assistant painter in Mark Kostabi's Chelsea painting factory where he had the opportunity to work alongside and learn from a number of Bulgarian and Russian master painters who were trained in the technically rigorous art academies of Eastern Europe. His paintings have appeared in exhibitions in New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and in Rosario and Santa Fe, Argentina.
|
 |
Photo: Maggie Law Beyond Time Studio, New York, NY |
|
|
| |
My paintings depict encounters between the everyday world of human existence and that of the numinous or spiritual world that intersects with it. The subject matter of my narrative painting has been drawn from accounts of spiritual or mystical encounters found both in stories from earlier periods of history and from contemporary reports that parallel them. During our present era, the imagery that corresponds most closely to the archetypal images found in the paintings of traditional cultures is found in accounts of near-death experiences and of encounters with supposed alien intelligences, and I have chosen to focus on this imagery as my subject matter. My painting has been most strongly influenced by the 17th Century Baroque Spanish and Neapolitan master painters. I am drawn to the intense spirituality found in these works, often expressed through spiraling, swirling patterns of energy. At the same time, having grown up during the late 20th Century, I was influenced through exposure to the vivid and saturated color schemes of comic book cover art, animated cartoons and anime. My paintings are a synthesis of these varied influences. The technical aspects of my painting reflect my interest in the materials and techniques employed by earlier painters, because of my interest in paralleling the depth and luminosity these master painters achieved. I paint using a traditional oil-painting process that involves the building-up of images through successive layers of varying degrees of transparency. This process is a time-consuming one but it enables me to achieve a luminosity and depth of color that would otherwise be impossible. XXX |
|
|
AWARDS AND RECOGNITIONS
EXHIBITIONS: WxSOLO AND SMALL GROUP EXHIBITIONS
WxSELECTED GROUP SHOWS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
|
|
