Ones to Watch: Alex Turco
Ian Volner -- Interior Design, 1/1/2013 8:32:00 PM
A living room featuring a Turco panel.
Alex Turco is a designer with a difference. Billing himself as an "art designer," the 32-year-old Turco creates decorative panels that are at once individual works of art and part of an integrated lifestyle concept that he's sought to make accessible to the broadest possible audience. The panels-which he produces both in canvas and in waterproof acrylic-on-metal editions appropriate for outdoor use-come in an extraordinary variety of abstract and figurative patterns, but all highlight a consistently compelling look that reflects their creator's unique artistic temperament and background.
"Since I was a child I was surrounded by brushes and paints," explains Turco. "But at the same time I had a camera in my hand and an Apple as a computer." His expressive side, combined with a strong pragmatic impulse, drove him to a brand of artistic practice that would be less about hanging paintings on bare gallery walls and more about affecting how real people really live.
"The world of design has always fascinated me," say Turco. In 2006, he started his own company, based on a simple premise: as he describes it, "Why not aim for something innovative-a product in between everything, that you can apply everywhere?"
The panels produced by his firm, Alex Turco Art Designer, are just that: simple, easily installed artworks that are measurably more artistic than ordinary wallpaper, but more durable and domestic than conventional artworks. The waterproof series, handcrafted and coated in a protective resin to guard against the elements, are equally suited to rooftop decks, kitchens, and bathrooms.
But Turco sees still broader applications-and if he gets his way, even submarines could get a colorful new makeover. Says the art designer, "I have an unrealized dream-to bring the art under water. I'll just reveal the name. DEEPART."
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