Artist Statement

Alexandre Masino’s paintings border between mimesis and invention; responding to observed reality, memory and imaginative perception. The transition between what is real, remembered or imagined creates a fertile territory for the artist, fully understanding that art derives from art. The journey undertaken by the artist is not only a journey through the world but beyond time. The continent that we travel is the continent of art where human history and experience are fundamental.

Masino’s approach is foremost pictorial and is deeply rooted in the constant metamorphosis inherent to the physical act of looking. A painting must offer many different realities according to the distance from which it is viewed and the ambient lighting hitting the surface. Many painters have evoked this very instant when the painting “rises”, when it “happens” and suddenly takes all its meaning. In Masino’s work this moment may only happen when one takes the time to look and place the subject in relation with the background, the light with the shadows, the image and the surface, and all these elements in relation with the complete picture.

Masino creates encaustic paintings where the richness, sensuality and versatility of the medium echo a minimal and contemplative imagery. Whether he uses landscapes, still lifes or nudes, we can relate his subject matters to some “intimate immensity”. His use of encaustic, with its physicality, impasto and transparencies, allows him to create figurative works in which the gesture, the actual act of painting, is just as important and meaningful as the depicted subject. In this regard we can feel that he is compelled by the inevitable dualism between matter and meaning that we find at the core of painting. Consequently his work focuses on this infinite moment where these realities oscillate.