Little Blue One, 2018

Alexander Buzzalini (American, b. 1990) is a contemporary visual artist living and working in Hamtramck/Detroit, MI. Buzzalini primarily uses paint, pencil and crayon in knowingly childish drawings on canvas with heavily worked surfaces of delirious commitment. The end result is what he calls a “painted drawing.” His current conceptual focus is on the American mythology of the Wild West. He has recently made some lamps. Buzzalini received his degree from Wayne State University. Artist Statement This new body of work is inspired by my relationships with local designers, who have influenced and broadened my attraction to objects and forms that bend the conventional rules of taste. The lamps are an extension of my sculptural practice in which I use plaster and cheese cloth to wrap or mummify structural skeletons. Considered both design works and interactive sculptures, this inaugural series is formed in reaction to mid-century modernist aesthetics that have become a staple in contemporary life, critiquing aesthetic homogeneity and proposing modes of living beyond those furnished by Ikea. Materially, the lamps are imperfect. They submit to the idiosyncrasies of their materials rather than impose order on them. This series of works embraces expression over function, intuitive irrationalities, and individual objects … each lamp is unique. The work is not symmetrical, refined or uniform. It is raw, tactile and grotesque, yet elegant in its stillful dance of lighting up the room.

Buzzalini's sculptural works have been featured in numerous group exhibitions and performances, including Friends Of Friends at Wasserman Projects in the fall of 2017.