MIKEL ALATZA
Mikel Alatza is a painter whose tremendous talent shines through in his unique portraits. Alatza’s faces contort in a full-tilt appeal to the senses. Many of his paintings are charged with an explosive energy that cannot be contained to a single plane, at which point Alatza’s paintings emerge off the wall in shards of panels.
Alatza has been a well-known part of the Venice art scene for the past decade, where he has developed a strong and loyal following. The wry, borderline sardonic tone of many of pf Alatza’s works reflects the artist’s sense of humor and willingness to subvert tradition.
He is also known for his early paintings, commissioned by renowned German artist, Martin Kippenberger, between 1989 and 1990. Kippenberger later manipulated the works with painted frogs and beer bottles, appropriating the works as his own. One of the appropriated paintings was recently featured in a retrospective of Kippenberger’s work at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. Alatza photographed Kippenberger for a prospective series of “self-portraits”, but Kippenberger moved back to Europe before the paintings were realized.
