When the subject you gravitate toward most is the human form, it might be easy to conflate that with being a “people person.” But Alex Malfero is quick to point out the contradiction of that logic in his own life — which is in essence part of the beauty of the local artist’s work. The push and pull between perception and memory versus reality, and how it manifests through art. We sat down with Alex to talk about his process and how his nomadic years have influenced how he creates.

How did your journey as an artist begin?

My mom’s a painter, so I grew up with it. She just embraced the creativity — taught me things pretty young. So I feel like since I was able to hold a pencil, I've been drawing. And I’d say I’m predominantly a draftsperson — I draw a lot more than I paint. I enjoy drawing more. It's easy to transport. You can do it anywhere. I've moved around quite a bit in the past decades, and it's easier to haul around a pencil box and paper than all my paints or sculpture tools.

I was born in Sioux Falls, my mom lives in Sioux City and my dad moved to Pierre —so I was back and forth my whole life. One of my grandmas lived here and that was home base. I spent quite a bit of time in Iowa probably until high school. And then I moved to Pierre and finished high school.

After I graduated I had no plans for college. Nobody in my family went to college and I just didn't think about it at all as an option. And then I moved to Sioux City shortly after I graduated and had a friend who was moving to Ames. So I went to a community college there for two years. I learned how to airbrush cars, which is useful now for my big paintings. because I'll do the underpainting and airbrush and then paint over it with a brush.

After I graduated there, I moved here for a couple of years and then just had a meltdown. My grandma had an aneurysm in front of me, I was 23 and it was just a lot to process. And so I went on a yearlong tour across the country. I was just camping. I saved all my money and I sold everything that I had in my apartment here, which wasn't much because I was in my early twenties.

I was in Atlanta staying with a friend at one point, and she encouraged me to apply to art school. And I was like, “Yeah, why not? What's the worst that can happen?” I applied and then I got accepted to the San Francisco Art Institute I moved there, and it was expensive — I had three jobs the whole time, but it was great. I met so many people. I did three years there and then their funding started getting cut, so my scholarships got cut and I moved to Las Vegas, which was probably the best thing I ever did. I really came out of my shell. In San Francisco, I was still very reserved and just kind of socially awkward. In Las Vegas, they had a really cool Bachelor of Fine Arts program. I graduated from there in 2020. My college journey was very long — eight or nine years.

And then during the pandemic, my friend in Salt Lake was like, “Hey, I'm going to go to grad school in New York.” And I'm easily persuaded to move. We thought COVID-19 was going to be over way sooner than it was, so not much happened in New York. And then two years ago I moved back — my mom has MS, and she was in a relapse, so I thought I'd come back and be around family for a while, since I hadn’t been for a long time.

How have you incorporated textile into your work?

I really like embroidery — it’s like drawing with thread. I've been playing with textile stuff for a few years now. My grandma taught me how to crochet and embroider when I was really little, and so that's just something that I carry with me and I've been leaning into it more often. I feel connected to it. I think that you can make a story out of just a thread and a needle. I think that's why I like drawing, too, because it's just this tiny little point that I can make this life-sized drawing out of.

Since returning to Sioux Falls, what have you been up to?

I’ve worked at (local boutique) Simply Perfect for, I think, going on 10 years now. Whenever I leave and come back for a short time, the owner always welcomes me back. That's home. And it's really cool just to see how her store just keeps expanding and expanding. When I first started, I was in shipping, not doing much, and now I'm the visual merchandiser. In a small business, you kind of wear a lot of hats. So I can use the knowledge that I've learned over the years, which is really exciting. I've never had a job that allowed me to be creative in that way.

What draws you to the human form as a subject?

The human body is repulsive, but it's also super beautiful. It’s the organic movements, I think, and skin is super cool. The layers it takes to paint skin — if you look at your arm, for instance, you can just see so many different colors happening. I especially like the nude form. Throughout time and art, it's kind of the same and I like that. It's the one thing that's doesn't change.

I'll put objects in my artwork, but it's more just to fill the space. I don't really enjoy painting or drawing things. People are cool, which is weird, since I’m not a big people person. But that's kind of how I live my life. It's very contradictory. I don't like people or new things, but my whole life is people and new things. Constantly going to new places and meeting with people. There's also something interesting about painting a lone figure in solitude. I think you can really examine a person's expression and what's going on in their head when they're sitting there alone. I don't know how to explain it.

Do you predominantly work with live models or images?

It's kind of a mixture of both. I spend a lot of time looking at old photos. I just love family photos and other people's family photos or photos throughout their lives. What I was working on for a long time was memory and fairytales — how lore influences our memories. Over time, memories kind of change and we mess with them and they're not exact to what actually happened. That's just so cool to me.

How would you describe your process?

I’m not somebody who sits and sketches all the time. I don't sketch out ideas. I read a lot and then I'll write a lot of notes on how I want things to be set up and then I'll execute it. I like working on self-portraits because it's my body and I can do whatever I want and I'm not going to offend the model by not painting a correct representation of them.

With portraits, I'll think about memories. I've noticed that sometimes if you're looking at your childhood photos, you might not even remember that happened, but the more you look at the photos from that time, you kind of build a memory of what was happening. So I'll start off with that image, the true photo, and then after reading stories that kind of remind me of what happened, I'll go in and I'll embellish with colors to kind of build a story within a story.

When did your fascination with sort of expression begin?

I've always been interested in the human form. I loved The Little Mermaid growing up — something about her hair and how they animated it. I found it so fascinating. I used to draw a lot of cartoons and anime and it just over time blossomed. I think art is just a form of storytelling, basically. I've always loved hearing people's stories, their memories and to constantly ask questions.

What role has color played in your work?

That's my main source of getting across whatever feeling or emotion that I want the viewer to see. I really find it fascinating to do a big work that's in a very vibrant color scheme and then have just a really sad kind of image happening within it. When people look at it more closely they might feel differently than first glance — to really examine the little parts of it shifts their response.

How do your surroundings impact your work?

I didn't grow up with money, and we always lived in tiny places. I’m used to having to work with the space that I have. I like my studio very bright and filled with things that make me happy and textures that I like to look at. I'll just have random fabrics around because I like them. The only purpose is that I just like to look at it. It's kind of my security blanket, I guess.

I think that for me, my environment is mostly in my head. When I lived in New York, I had this tiny, tiny apartment. My bedroom was a twin bed, and then I had maybe three feet of working room. But I created so much stuff there because it was also the pandemic. We were all locked in, and working with what I had was sometimes a fun challenge.

How has art served as an outlet for you through the years?

I think sometimes working in this way has been an outlet on a personal level, especially when I'm looking back at myself as a child and the struggles that I dealt with being queer in South Dakota. My mom has always been very open-minded — she's just great like that — but other people, not so much. So now I have the capability and privilege of just taking my body and doing whatever I want to it. In my work, I can make myself Snow White if I want, and nobody can say that I can't. In my paintings, if I want to wear a dress or I want to have on crazy makeup, I can do whatever I want with myself.

The Art of Contradiction