ALTPICK.COM

Photographer/multi-media artist Alexandros Maslatzides relishes the challenge of including as many mediums as possible in the process of creation. Not for the sake of doing it but as an attempt to discover the key of merging elements otherwise completely foreign to one another, into a harmonious whole. "Of course this presents a lot of challenges because everything has to feel in place," explains Alexandros of his photo-based mixed media style. "There is a constant exchange of mediums in what I do, from one format to another, even when a piece is considered finished. The fine art pieces of course maintain their integrity as separate entities but some of these elements cross over to the video and sound format and get reprocessed."

Born and raised in Athens, Greece Alexandros studied architecture for 2 years before coming to New York City in 1990. "I love architecture, it is so strongly connected to my roots as a Greek but there was a rigidity in the medium that I just wanted to run from." He enrolled at the School of Visual Arts to study graphic design with an emphasis on photography and fine art. His first job was at RCA records where he soon realized that designing for the music industry sounded a lot more glamorous than its daily reality. "So I opted to unleash the surplus of creative energy on my own unbound experiments."

At some point between '95 and '96 his current format was born. It starts with a photographic, conventional digital collage of his photography, which is then printed and transferred to canvas no smaller than 24" X 36" and often as large as five feet long. The whole piece is then varnished with several types of finishes as well as painted by hand using acrylics, oils, liquid metals, and metal oxides.

Alexandros returned to Greece in '98 with enough pieces for a show after several unsuccessful attempts to exhibit his work in New York. "Gallery owners couldn't even categorize the work in order to market it. Besides, anything that had to do with 'digital' was avoided like the plague back then." In Athens the show was a great success for me, "People were blown away both by the thematic and the way it was executed. I was really pleased," he says of the experience. Alexandros continues to do commissioned work for private owners in Europe and New York. These days his work can also be seen in several books including Extreme Design by Spencer Drate, as well as in Digital Exposure from Dimensional Illustrators Inc.

Currently Alexandros is in pre-production with his brother Chrysostomos for their upcoming film 'The Production' which Alexandros will direct and create the original score. Altpick.com spoke to Alexandros regarding his work, philosophy and upcoming projects.

Will you hire a cinematographer to shoot it?
My brother, who is also a photographer, will shoot most of it. I will shoot part of it as well. Especially because it is our first film, I don't think I'd be able to translate the way I see and frame things to another cinematographer in a better way than I can to my brother who, after all, co-wrote this with me and understands its aesthetics better than anyone else.

How would you describe your philosophy towards the work?
It is meant to be a reflection of the inner struggle of our collective as well as individual psyche as we attempt to understand the combination of decline and emergence taking place in our modern world. This is about decoding subconscious, a psychograph if you will, an attempt to photograph the dilemmas of the human soul and strip them bare, letting them reveal varying levels of consciousness, allowing the viewer an experience that hovers close to our deepest inner explorations.

So, are each of your personal pieces an offshoot of a central theme?
The pieces reflect the confusion human existence creates, often using hidden messages and disturbing images to convey the belief that if we only look for the answers, we will find them, sometimes where we least expect them.

Because your work is so specific, do you find art directors give you more leeway?
So far it's only happened when a client has loved a certain piece and wanted to showcase it as it is. I haven't really been in a situation where an art director wanted me to change things on a piece for a specific purpose, but I find that possibility to be a wonderful challenge as well. What I love about this process is that it is a really great challenge to be able to maintain the integrity of the work and at the same time fulfill a client's needs, creating work that can also fit into the commercial market.

How do you keep yourself inspired?
I manage to cross over to a state of mind that allows me to think and feel in image and sound most of the time, which I consider a miracle since none of it is "chemically" induced. Or if you must label it, many people have a very specific way of talking about it: "Insanity."

How has working commercially changed your artistic process?
In working commercially as a designer, the limitations are so much more obvious: You have to obey specific rules and guidelines you otherwise wouldn't be obligated to. That has had a big influence on my artistic process because it has made me a lot more disciplined and a lot more aware of the way the viewer would possibly perceive a certain piece. In other words, it has made me more sensitive to the "viewer's needs" than most fine artists would care to admit. That of course shouldn't imply I would compromise the integrity of the work because of it.

In working commercially as a fine artist, the only thing that separates the commercial aspect from the fine art aspect is the final presentation. If you see the specific piece hanging in a gallery you get a much more organic feel of it than you would if you were to see it in a magazine. But in the end, we're all so used to experiencing fine art through the media anyway. Concluding, the process doesn't change, the final result is the same. Our ability to experience it changes since it is translated back to a photographic process on a letter-sized image in a book or magazine.

- Contributed by Mary-Beth Holland