Alfonso Gonzalez Jr

Test I know you are born and bred in Los Angeles, and the city is your biggest reference. However, a lot of artists live here, and Los Angeles is not always represented in their work. What made you choose to the city as a theme.

That's a good question. Well, maybe it has to do with the things I grew up doing, like skateboarding, graffiti, or even travel. I think it also had to do with my desire to document. I liked taking photos and felt my favourite photos were always of LA. As I started thinking about what I wanted to make my work about, I would just reference these photos. Initially I didn't think about it too much. It was as straightforward as that, but as I would leave and come back home, the city would have a drastic change.

So what you're saying is there were constant changes, noticeable changes, and you kind of wanted to document that in your work?

Yeah, to preserve this moment in time and I was realising that we live in such a young city. I think LA is so new, and whether you're talking about art or music or anything LA, it's new compared to even like New York, which has so much more of a history. LA is growing now, and I guess the change, the things I really liked, admired and was inspired by, I’m just seeing that go away.

Is this interest something that developed or was it more your connection since childhood?

No, I think growing up, say skateboarding, you're always looking for spots. Same with graffiti. My dad's a sign painter, and he would do a lot of mobile work, and I would go with him to work all over Southern California and just see the different neighbourhoods. I always liked that, and it was pretty fascinating to me. I feel like the work that I'm doing now, within the past eight years or however long it's been, is a lifetime of looking and observing and experiences that now I'm able to do what I'm doing.

Being surrounded, obviously, by Los Angeles and having such a broad palette of potential inspiration, how do you find what you want to represent in your work?

Most of it's done on my phone. Yeah, my phone. So I just snap photos of anything that I find even slightly interesting.

So you could be pulling from a picture from ten years ago? Is it just like, whatever you like? How do you choose that special image to build from?

A recent car series I worked on called NO PARKING has from a photo I snapped in maybe 2017? I was never thinking that I was going to use it for something, anything could make it special to me. It could be like the lighting, composition, colour, a mural, or one thing in a composition that is interesting to me. If there is a theme, it’s the art that lives outside. Art that isn't on the white wall. Not institutional.

And I'm assuming because you have your father's a sign painter, and activities like skateboarding and graffiti, it helped choose the direction of your style of art, well at the moment?

Yeah that's a part of it, but maybe not as straightforward.

As I sit in your studio, full of paint and colour, I see little bits in your work that are notes to things only people living in LA would know. Do you think people that might not know these reference points, will still get what you want from the pieces?

So that's the cool thing about art, whether it's like an abstract or conceptual work. Where you walk into a space and you're like, “Wow, what is this?” It makes you feel something. I think some people really, really understand the references and they get something, but I don't think you need to know or need to be from here. I think people could relate to them in their own way. You know?

Yeah for sure, people can find different meanings.

I’m like always fascinated with people's choices. Like people's choices and why they named their business a certain thing. Since I used to do commercial work, I would have a client ask me, for example “Hey! People call me rabbit, so can you paint a rabbit on the side of my truck?” I think that’s cool.

"There is something that has to connect with you as an overall thing."

Yeah so interesting! How do you decide from your collection of images, a series you want to create and exhibit? What will make your choices special in your mind?

Well for that car series, I collected thousands of photos. I look back at the archive, and I see different themes. When you're able to zoom out, you're able to sort of see patterns. But you know, the work is about LA, and it’s difficult to get a lens, and it’s difficult to document anything here without a car being there? I think as a whole, what the work is about is the community's relationship to public space and how people who live in the area influence and change the surface. So that could be a mural, a sign, or graffiti, anything really. Cars, car modifications or like different sculptural elements within them.

I know you said one of your latest paintings is based on an image for maybe nine years ago? How do you decide what you take a picture of you might want to paint, or even find it once you have it in your collection?

It's hard. Some of it happens when I'm intentionally going out to find things. The difficult thing is that I find all kinds of cool things, but I'm trying to figure out what makes sense for me. I made a book about those last paintings, but included photos, like different ones that I haven't painted. The photos that I included, I wouldn't make paintings.

How do you know what will be good for a painting and what will not? Is it just that some pictures you're not quite sure of, or because you mentioned how you have tonnes of photos that you would never paint?

There's an image, but I take the liberty to change it. So I'm not set on copying the image. I change things and I add things. So maybe one part of something I would really like. So I'll reference it in something else.

How do you search through all the images you currently have to ensure you might not have one that works?

It's all on my iPhone.

Oh so you don’t have a place where you have files and categories to help you look?

No, I'm really bad. I'm really bad at everything. I only just realised that you could type a descriptive on the photo app, like a car, and the images will pop up.

[laughs] So you would just scroll, until five years ago?

It actually started in 2017, so I have everything since 2017 on my phone.

I am the opposite! I clear everything off my phone regularly. So then once you decide on an image, does a painting take a long time?

It's always different. If I have something to just jump into, I don't procrastinate. I knew I wanted to sort of keep that last series together, and finally that show was the opportunity to do it. Some pieces were started all the way back in 2023.

Looking around a lot of your work has certain textures and washes. Do you plan everything before you start to paint?

The cool thing about paint is you could change. You could paint over it. There is something that has to connect with you as an overall thing. Once you feel like that's what you want to paint, all the other ideas will come once that base foundation is in.

That is interesting as your work has so many layers, both figuratively and literally.

That’s the great thing is there are no rules. I feel like there's so much freedom within what I do. As far as being an artist, I think setting strict rules is not helpful. I have friends who make references and need to stick to that. I don’t do that at all.

"I feel like there's so much freedom within what I do."

Do you do small little tests? Or do you just go straight in?

I just go straight into it. For the vehicle series, there is sort of less texture. I use enamel and they're both oil based, but the sheen is different. I could varnish it at the end, so it flattens everything out. There's always ways around it.

Are there things that you want to experiment with that go beyond that? I guess people know your specific style, does that make you nervous to change things up?

No, for that vehicle series, I also made sculptures. There was a room where there won't be any paintings. I've made sculptures and done things like that, but I think I'm maybe less known for that. I'm very much a painter, but I don't feel like that's all I am. Painting is my way into understanding what I want to think about and talk about in my visual language. I always think it's amazing when you see an artist's career, like everything they went through and how they started off doing one thing, then changed to another. By the time they're old, they're doing whatever they want, because they're just so confident within themselves.

I guess it's like when you think about artists like David Lynch, who was not only a filmmaker, but he also was a painter and sculptor. It's like these are extensions to his work. A few other artists I have chatted with, love using technology as a tool. Is that something that interests you?

It's cool. I don't knock it because I wish I could do that. I feel like I would maybe make better work if I had the discipline to work.

Better how?

Well, maybe save time. So for instance, I'm looking at a painting here of a food truck that's orange. Part of me has gone back and forth thinking it might be way better if it was white. If I was good at Photoshop, I'd be like, let me just see how it looks.

So being more time effective in filling out ideas without putting in the work?

Exactly.

Would you want to spend time learning stuff like that?

No, no. I feel like now at this point I could hire someone to help me. The thing about that is, I need to be there with the person. I feel like my work would be very different if it was that, so maybe I should. I just should embrace it.

So your interest in using technology would be more of like the actual production, and not the output, like 3D modelling?

I have friends that I could collaborate with on that. I feel like the work is very hands-on and I'm very much like a crafts person and like all that sort of stuff.. I'm really happy and open to collaborate, and as long as, conceptually, it's coming from me, then that's the important part.

Is there anything you want to do like that you've been thinking about but haven't done yet.

There's a lot of stuff. There's so much I want to do, but I feel like I need to focus on one thing at a time.

How does it feel to do a solo show?

A solo show is a lot of work. It’s hard, but it's a great privilege to be able to do so.

How do you choose what will be the focus of a show? Is it just what inspires you at that moment?

I haven't done too many solo shows, but gratefully the people I've worked with trust me. I had this last one in Los Angeles with Matthew Brown, and did a show in 2024 with Jeffrey Deitch in New York.

I didn’t go to it, but I saw pictures of it. The pieces looks great!

I've worked with Jeffrey for a few years, and he asked me to do that show. I didn't share anything I was doing with him or anybody in the gallery.

Is that normal?

I think some people micromanage. The gallery is very generous in supporting me financially for the production, but they still didn’t bother me. Like, Jeffrey never bothered me about it, and I wouldn’t really feel comfortable if he did. A month before the show, he came to Los Angeles and did a visit. We talked about it, and I showed him what I was up to. It was never him directing what I should do to be able to sell more.

I've never asked anyone I've interviewed about that process. I'm intrigued how involved they are.

I think it depends. I think it depends on a lot of different things. But like I said, I've worked with, you know, Matthew Brown or Jeffrey Deitch a lot. I think they trust what I'm doing. They are more like, “We're going to do this fair. Would you want to be in it?” If anything, I will be the one to ask for their opinion. They're never pressuring me to do something I don't want to do.

That’s really interesting to know. How do you decide what angle you take with s show? Is it important to have a clear LA parallel in your work?

I don't really think about it in that way too much, because there are artists like Ed Ruscha, who made work about Southern California, but it still transcends beyond that. I don't say, “Oh I'm gonna do a New York show, let me make work about New York.” Although I have spent a lot of time there, and for this last New York show, I did make certain things about New York, but I will only do it if it felt right. I've also made work for shows in say Mexico City or San Francisco, but that's just because I have history with those places. I've connected with them. If I were to do a show, say, in Australia or something, I don't really know what that would be.

Maybe you could throw a kangaroo in there? There is a famous image of a boxing kangaroo which reminds of the boxing rabbits I’ve seen in some of your pieces.

That's cool, I like that. Maybe I would! [laughs] As long as it makes sense with what I'm doing and I'm not doing it just to appease the market.