Biography
To understand the work of al.to. you need to know him. Alfredo Manfredi Cosimo Freddi Torsello doesn’t hide a personality behind every name, but certainly, every name has its own story that, weaving amongst each other, gave life to quite an original man. Even from the multiple names of al.to. you will find one of the typical characteristics of the artist, his versatility. It all started on the day he was born, in the middle of the night in the Salento between 25 and 26 September, 1958. Manfredi is the name chosen by the family – as per tradition, after the paternal grandfather – but not accepted by the Church, for which the name Alfredo had to be attached to it.
As the result of a canvas that he received as a gift by his mother, art became the playmate of a child whose mind went chasing after the endless curiosities of life. Incredibly, in the little things, in observation of everyday life, Manfredi set himself apart for the originality of his approach, a particularity that translates also into an extreme passion for maths, through which he, almost by way of play, resolves problems that for others are boring or complicated.
Some of Manfredi’s works were chosen for school competitions, others remained in the family, still others, especially drawings, didn’t make it to this day.
Manfredi, once an adult, decided what his future would be: that of Chemical Engineer, first at the University of Florence, then in Bologna, where he earned his degree. At the moment of enrolment, the name Alfredo made its reappearance, the bureaucratic name. It was a coup de théâtre that, at the very first, was somewhat destabilising. Nonetheless, nothing that dramatic for one who, in this accidental occurrence, found a form of interesting originality.
The years went by, while painting took a backseat, absorbed as he was in his work as an engineer, by his family and the children born from his first wife.
2011 marked a moment of creative revival. Paola, his new partner, organised a trip to Madrid for his birthday, in September. It was a difficult moment for him, the loss of his mother and other changes left their marks in that moment. The trip to Spain was extraordinary in various ways: a full immersion among the masterpieces of the museums of Madrid generated an incredible and unstoppable need to express himself. The first work was a painting, L’angolo dei Desideri/The Corner of Desires (chosen for the “Esposizione Triennale di Arti Visive a Roma 2014/ Exhibition of Visual Arts in Rome 2014”), that interprets, in an oneiric form, a photo taken by Paola in a hall of the Reina Sofia Museum. This painting is signed Manfredi. But something must change, it’s not the case to stay anchored to a faraway past.
The idea was born, mediated by mathematical concepts, to create a diminutive, an acronym that however comprised the entire life of a man. Nothing could be better than al.to., the start of the first name and the start of the surname, a bit like the alpha and omega that enclose everything within them but that, in truth, open to infinite possibilities.
Since October 2011 al.to. had stopped no more, painting and all the techniques that he continues ceaselessly, to use and experiment with, have returned to being his most natural dimension, and through the privileged language of art, in which a bilateral calling comes forth, al.to. is able to release the primary need to reveal, first to himself and then to others, the person who, in reality he is and has been.
Art as catharsis, or, at the very least, as the natural path of creative necessity, fruit of emotional meditation, often during the night, which finds in painting and in the vitality of colour, the most natural way to present himself in front of reality.
To look deep inside oneself, by means of a visceral connection with the language of art, the most compatible with one’s own Self, render the choices of al.to. universal: each one of us can explore our own psyche, letting ourselves be guided by the artist. The curiosity for life in all of its aspects, the playful and passionate form, are the interpretation keys that al.to. hands to us, to enter in contact with his work and his very personal view of the world. And the plurality which, too often, people fear, is represented and thought up by the artist as a new opportunity, not as a danger. The various parts of his self, always in contact with each other, become tangible in his works of art, accompanied by that element of the unexpected.
