Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Alex Righetto. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alex, appreciate you joining us today. Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?

want to start this interview by focusing attention on a “crime” committed every day by many schools around the world.

It’s a thought so widely shared by society that it seems impossible to dissolve.

“Everyone knows that” being an artist doesn’t pay the bills. Everyone is capable of being an artist as long as the rent is not due.

Have you ever heard these sentences?

If we all agree that one cannot make a living as an artist, who has the authority to establish this truth?

Schools, first and foremost, are the sources of this crime. At the core of this issue, there are failed artists in their profession who, in order to remain in the artistic field, decide to accept 9-to-5 jobs, sacrificing personal freedom for stability.

Imagine a teacher who, unable to be a full-time artist, teaches young minds every day. What advice can they offer to students who express their intention to become full-time artists?

Among all the problems that exist, being an artist is not one of them. What artists suffer from is not technical skill or financial problems, but rather the inability to approach their activity in an entrepreneurial way.

Being an artist means being an entrepreneur, producer, and distributor all at once.

Making a living as an artist partly entails delivering an excellent product and service and partly being a marketer and a salesperson.

After this long preamble, I can now share my story.

I attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Italy and took many courses. Unfortunately, after some failures, I immediately gave up my career and worked as an employee for several years.

And guess what, the reason was exactly the same: some teacher (the authority for me at that time) told me it was hard to be an artist. better do a 9-5 job.

Finally, after several years, having consolidated my experience as an entrepreneur, I decided to take a big step, and in 2021, I became a full-time artist, living solely from my art.

The first painting sold for 6000, while recently I sold another one for just under 40,000.

This is the best example I have given to myself of how wrong or perhaps too general the thought that one cannot make a living as an artist is.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Alex, and I am a full-time visual artist.

My work is about evoking emotions and making people reflect by creating paintings and artistic products with the aim of inspiring and changing the world around me, leaving an indelible mark, if possible, in my wake.

I believe that being an artist is a mission that not everyone can accept; God has given artists the tools to communicate and touch people’s hearts, even if only for a moment.

It is up to them to know how to use these tools and cultivate their talent to inspire real change.

We would all be crazy if we said that everything is fine and that there is nothing to change, if everything we see around us were just chocolate instead of something else.

It is the artist’s task to challenge the dogmas of society in order to change them and rebalance the future with a new perspective.

Does it seem like too much? Just look at how much power celebrities have today in shaping public opinion.

Look at how a handful of brilliant artists have changed the course of humanity, creating the Renaissance and guiding the world towards the modern era.

Art.

My paintings are generally a reminiscence of my Italian past, revisiting Renaissance themes and drawing inspiration from classical paintings of the past in a modern key.

In fact, I was born and raised in Italy and now live in the United States.

A few years into my career as an artist, I find myself in Miami with a solo exhibition, a permanent gallery in Tampa, and five-figure sales for each painting.

I have participated in Art Basel Miami more than twice, and one of my paintings was featured in Vogue and displayed for a week on one of the largest billboards in Times Square.

My desire is to become an internationally renowned artist to share my message on a wide scale.

Through all social media platforms, I have gathered around 70,000 followers, and I am working with a mailing list of 8,000 people.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

From April 23 to 29, my artwork titled ‘Mona Lisa’s Daughter’ was displayed on two giant screens in Times Square, including a 100-foot-long one, establishing one of my most important career moments so far.

video : https://youtu.be/V4_M3Q-m4d4

The Times Square event was organized in partnership with a gallery. We meticulously planned the launch, but then, out of the blue, the gallery vanished. Yes, you read that correctly.

The exhibition was called off…

This turn of events made the news, and several artists, myself included, lost both the chance to exhibit and the money invested.

I had already arranged my trip to New York, including flight tickets and hotel accommodations, so the only option left was to try and make things work regardless of the situation.

I wasn’t ready to accept a “no,” so I tapped into my resources and made it happen without any gallery support.

In fact, the painting ended up being featured on not just one, but two different billboards.

It turned out to be a huge success for me.

the event created a great buzz for me with lots of people from all over the world congratulating me.

The most important thing, however, is that many people have become intrigued by the painting Mona Lisa’s Daughter.

This painting, along with others, stems from the idea of exploring one of the greatest periods in art history, the Renaissance.

One of the world’s most famous paintings, in fact, originated from that period: Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.

In researching the subject, I was intrigued to discover that Lisa del Giocondo (the subject of the painting) had a stillborn daughter.

I began to explore the idea of representing the daughter as if she were still alive. What expression would she have?

From this emerged a painting that is like a still life, a kind of “memento mori” (a Latin word that means: remember that you must die). It is the emblem of human transience.

A symbol of life and death, represented by the expressive technique that displays vivid features of the daughter, such as her face, alongside others that unmistakably depict a corpse.

A yin and yang, a dichotomy of elements that characterize life: light and darkness, good and evil, life and death…

I have also explored the techniques used for the Mona Lisa, but instead of copying them, I have reinterpreted them. It is well-known that the Mona Lisa has two different perspectives, left and right.

The gaze of the daughter exhibits vitality and three-dimensionality following the application of the same concept.

The painting is not for sale. In fact, I turned down an offer of $60,000 after the exhibition in New York and recently declined an offer of $100,000 following the personal exhibition in Miami.

Who would have thought?

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

As previously mentioned, the most important thing I would have wanted to know earlier, and of which I can never know enough, is about knowing how to sell.

Knowing how to sell is perhaps more important than knowing how to paint. The art industry has become practically a monopoly of a few companies because artists do not sell; they rely on galleries that, in turn, were born out of an artistic impulse rather than a commercial one.

But here comes another poison that eats away at artists.

“Everyone knows that” an artist should not be commercial, right? Commercial means conventional, doesn’t it? Well, it is through the idea that one must exchange their own paintings for money that they can survive.

So, in truth, an artist must ethically market themselves, following their instincts and proposing things that are important to them beyond mere money.

Another piece of information that surely destroys emerging artists.

The artist has to deal with a lot of false ideas that prevent them from doing honest and serene work.

a Job that feeds the soul of those who still have a spirit.

If these words seem audacious, I invite you to read “Concerning the Spiritual in Art” by Kandinsky. It can be easily found online.

This is an area for scholars and lovers of culture because art deals with the innermost part of each of us.

The only advice I give is not to listen to the advice of others. Arm yourself and do not follow the “experts” in the field.

If the industry is in such conditions, it means that the experts have not done their job well.

Knowing how to sell directly is the perfect antidote against others’ opinions and the criminal individuals that proliferate in the art world.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.alexrighetto.art/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alex.righetto/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/iamalexrighetto
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-righetto/

Image Credits
all images are mine