THE RIOT: Q&A with Alis Pelleschi
After having gushed over her work, which runs the gamut from photography to filmmaking to hat-making (yes, she’s an award winning hat-maker), I knew that my next feature would have to be all about visual artist, Alis Pelleschi. Hailing from the city of Bradford in Northern England, Pelleschi now resides in London where she has cultivated a bold artistic style characterized by electric color, spot-on parody, and a potent dose of surrealism. Her involvement in media creation has helped her to develop a keen insight into human nature and the relationships we build with the images that pervade our world. Through her work, Pelleschi manages to simultaneously engage with and comment on popular culture, exposing our media obsessions through hilarious short films and photo series’. In her joint photographic and video projects entitled Super Fans and Lonely Hearts, Pelleschi transforms herself into a number of amusing alter egos that serve both to entertain and to satirize the ways in which popular culture influence personal identity. In addition to these projects, Pelleschi has a stunning portfolio of photography that is both technically and conceptually innovative, marked by her unique ability to find beauty in the unusual, the bizarre, and the seemingly mundane. She and her work have been featured in such publications as Bullett, Glamour, Grungecake, Honk, i-D, Notion, NYLON Japan, NYLON Mexico, Spindle, SUPER SUPER!, and Vice. This humble undergraduate blogger was actually lucky enough to have Ms. Pelleschi answer a few questions for me via email.
THE RIOT: What motivated you to pursue a career in photography?
ALIS: Humm, I think I just slowly grew into it. I didn’t really think when I was younger, I wanted to be a photographer particularly. I knew I wanted to perform/create/build/construct. For a while I wanted to be a musician, or a pop star or an actress and I went to a performing arts high school. I wouldn’t even class myself as just a photographer, as I think I just enjoy and relish in constructing things and working on numerous creative varying projects. Even when I was applying for universities, I had this idea that I also wanted to be a fashion designer and so applied for both photography and fashion. Before that, growing up, I never really thought being a photographer as a possible option for a career. As I associated worlds like that, far away from my world in Bradford. Anyway, I ended up studying visual communications at university and eventually specializing in photography. And as I started to get recognition online and in magazines etc, I started to see myself as actually being able to perhaps make a career out of it.
THE RIOT: What has been your favorite shoot/ project thus far?
ALIS: Humm I do get asked this a lot and I don’t really like answering it as I get bored of looking at my old work and want to be creating new exciting things! But I will always love my photos of senior citizens, merely for what they represent and remembering all the beautiful interesting people I met and talked to. And I loved shooting my Super Fans series.
THE RIOT: Where do you draw your inspiration from?
ALIS: From characters I meet, every day life, the world I’m from and currently in, my background, our obsession with celebrities/popular culture, my family.
THE RIOT: I am in love with your video pieces Lonely Hearts and Super Fans. Can you talk a little bit about these works?
ALIS: Yeah, I mean, ever since Myspace arrived, it gave me this platform that I could take photos of myself and put them up online. And obviously, evolving on from that, years later, I’m still creating characters. The idea being that I can be any or all of these characters. Super Fans comments on our obsession with celebrities and Lonely Hearts are looking for a date.
THE RIOT: What advice would you give an aspiring young creative?
ALIS: I’d say, keep your work personal to you. That is what will make your work unique, especially in this current world where everyone is a photographer or an artist. There are sooo many talented people. But if you keep true to where you come from and what interests you, that is what will make people interested.
See more of Alis Pelleschi’s work at her website: http://www.alispelleschi.com
Rachael Roof
Stay tuned next week for THE RIOT’s very first webisode featuring an interview with Circuit Des Yuex‘s Haley Fohr!
Last 5 posts by rroof
- You Should Hear: Heems - November 28th, 2011
- THE RIOT: Namalee Bolle is Loud, Proud and Dangerous - November 17th, 2011