[NoHo Arts District, CA] – This month’s LA Art artist spotlight features a chat with artist Alex Moaveni.
I turned the corner, and GASP! Where traditionally stood a room of TVs, didn’t. TVs used to adorn full walls of the apartment at Brewery Artwalk, with TVs even serving as partitions in the living room. Manikins (with TV heads) used to watch the TVs littering the space. I’d really appreciated that particular space at Brewery Artwalk, but what I appreciate even more is Alex Moaveni’s contemporary Artwalk installation.
Minimalist, but somehow both functional and cutting-edge art, Alex Moaevni’s artwork is universally attractive. Now, with my granola self (I enjoy café lights, a well organized but quirky space, and certainly gemstones and crystals – because, let’s face it, who doesn’t?), I had a particular appreciation for the type of art Moaveni produces. It’s personal, and yet still commercial.
Moaveni has somehow produced an exhibition of 1) fine art, 2) commercially viable art for mass audiences, and 3) large-scale experience-worthy art (think Meow Wolf or Refinery29 art shows).
NoHo Arts District had the pleasure of virtually sitting down with Moaveni for a very special Q&A.
Q: How long have you been an artist? What has been your professional trajectory/arc?
A: I was hired at the Mill LA in 2010 as a runner which was a pretty great way to discover the city as a new transplant. Running errands and delivering tapes to various editors and color grading houses around town gave me a feel for LA fairly quickly. I worked on commercial visual effects there for a couple years as a Houdini FX artist before I got the opportunity to do feature film animation on Sony Imageworks Hotel Transylvania. I did a couple more features with them and then got hired on at Disney Animation for Moana. Working on Moana was an incredible experience partnering with animation legends Ron Clements and John Musker. I remember once I got a note from them asking if I could make the water in one of my shots “feel more sad” which perplexed me at the time, simulated effects typically try to resemble real-world physics but that comment shifted my perspective away from technical realism into how to use math and technology to affect emotional response in visuals. I was frustrated in the moment but now I’m eternally grateful for that insight. I got the opportunity to expand further on that idea when I partnered with another animation legend Dan Lund on Frozen 2. Dan was and is very influential with the visual language of the magic in the Frozen franchise. The software I use Houdini excels in replicating physical properties of natural phenomena such as fire, water, clouds, etc. but his background in 2d hand-drawn effects is very connected with more emotional, theatrical feelings so under his mentorship we found ways to “break” CG animation tendencies of being very literal, physically based, and made the graphics more emotional often by doing things by hand frame-by-frame. Frozen 2 I consider the high watermark of my animation career. I won my second Annie Award for that, but the Covid pandemic caused another massive shift in my creative perspective. During that time I grew sick of living life through screens and I realized all of my work up until then had been virtual pixels and I craved something more tangible, I wanted a visceral direct experience. In the summer of 2020 I started building electric skateboards, I discovered a group of dudes that were building these machines that resembled race cars more than what we first think of as a skateboard. They were constructed of a chromoly tube frame with aluminum plating capable of over 40 mph, check out Moe of Stooge Raceboards truly incredible work. I wanted to be a part of that so I learned how to design parts in CAD and built a CNC machine to mill masters from which I made fiberglass molds and then carbon fiber parts to build my own electric skateboards, on which I later raced and won. For me, the fun part was painting these boards with 70’s style chopper/muscle car graphics but all my potential customers wanted them in matte black matte black matte black. So I grew tired of that prospect and desired to do something more creative. My marriage didn’t survive the pandemic and one week after I learned of my impending divorce a friend from university reached out after 12 years since we last spoke asking if I’d like to come to Burning Man, which hell yeah I’ve never had a better opportunity in my life. At the event, I was blown away by the light art and LED sculptures and decided I needed to be a part of that. Given my background in digital art and experience working with resin, it felt like a very natural transition to making emissive objects that impart emotion. For me it’s about the transmission of light and animation, the crystals happen to be a very interesting shape that picks up the light properties. One of my inspirations came from my work I did on Frozen 2, during the “Show Yourself” sequence Elsa breaks through an ice wall shattering the fragments into a dark void which then shows her visions of the elements of nature. When animating the sequence Dan and myself took inspiration from kinetic sculptures and I’ve felt since then I’d love to recreate that effect in real life, that was the idea behind my crystal flag fixtures.
Q: How has your practice changed over time?
A: I started off with a focus on realism but transitioned to more emotional, semi-abstract during my time with Disney. Today I’m most interested in conveying feelings of serenity through the use of light and form.
Q: What media do you use to create your art?
A: I’m interested in bridging the gap from virtual digital art with the physical world. I consider LEDs to be physical pixels but the properties of direct emissive light have qualities of their own, darks are hard to portray for example I find you can get away with it using contrast. Light is so incredibly interesting it actually has a somatic response on the viewer. I’m not super scientific with my color choices I go on feel but a lot of people tell me the pieces are so soothing which is what I’m going for.
Q: What message do you hope your audience imparts from your work?
A: It’s not so much a story as it is a feeling of calm, of reconnection with the Tao, God, the Universe whatever you want to call it. I live with this stuff every day and I want to feel peace and at home.
Q: What is life like as an artist?
A: Lol omg. Not easy. I could have used my skills to secure a much more comfortable life but I deliberately chose to do something that felt authentic to my core self. My spiritual practice is strong, so when I realized that life is just energy recycled and this particular human at this particular time has a yearning to make cool stuff that makes other humans feel nice, it feels like a responsibility to keep pulling that thread. Day to day it’s a constant balance of trying to stay inspired while getting things done. It’s too easy to get stuck in “I need to get it done” mode during which inspiration and the quality of work suffers. You need to center yourself on why you’re doing what you’re doing and it’s easy to lose perspective working alone in your studio.
Q: What is your dream project?
A: I would absolutely love to build a crystal starfield room for Meow Wolf LA, or if money was no object make my own outdoor-light-wonderland thing out in Joshua Tree
Moaveni’s seemed to achieve a particular enlightenment. An enlightenment that circulates as platitudes from parents to children (especially parents to children who pursue artistic endeavors). But Moaveni has embraced art for art’s sake – something to share with others and quite literally brighten their days. Versus getting caught in the trap of cranking out pieces of work because that’s the expectation.
NoHo Arts looks forward to seeing Moaveni’s work in large-scale installations for art experiences enjoyed by the many. We are certain this is what’s to come for Moaveni, and excited to have shared some time on his path.