Luca Lamperti

Year of birth: 1978
Where do you live: I live in Lecco, Lombardy, Italy.
Your education: After middle school, I attended a vocational school, but I never finished and only completed the second year.
Describe your art in three words: Nightmares, visions, reality.
Your discipline: Surrealist alien sculpture.
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Can you tell us about the significance of your early experiences, particularly the challenges you faced growing up and how they influenced your art?

In my mind, there has always been curiosity and a desire to learn new things, and perhaps my visions and nightmares have helped me in some way, even though, at times, they mentally held me back. Having alien shapes imprinted in your mind pushes you to want to show them to the world, maybe just out of curiosity. I have this innate ability to learn anything quickly and experiment immediately afterward. For many people, it was seen as a waste of time, so I’ve always done things somewhat in the shadows. I created, and only a few people saw my work. When you’re told for years that what you’re doing is pointless, that you’re wasting time, eventually, you start believing it and remain in your shell, waiting for someone to notice.

You mention that your work is a reflection of your “disease.” Could you elaborate on how this vision manifests itself in your sculptures and the process of creating them?

I call it a disease because I can’t stop creating things that don’t exist in this world. My luck is that when I dream at night, I truly see these things, and it’s terrifying in a way because they are nightmares I’ve had since I was little. I mentally photograph them, and upon waking, I reproduce them. It’s a dream that has lasted forever, as if I were watching a movie, and each time it continues from where I left off. All I do is show what I see.

Luca Lamperti | Parasys-bassa

How did meeting H.R. Giger impact your artistic journey, and in what ways do you see similarities between his work and your own?

My encounter with H.R. Giger was unexpected. I was at one of his exhibitions in Milan, and while I was looking at one of his paintings, he stood next to me and asked what I truly saw in that image. I replied with what it meant to me, and he said he had seen the same thing. I felt proud to have had the chance to communicate such a deep thought with him because, for me, he was the artist who inspired me! He was, and always will be, the master who pushed me to do what I do today. The only thing we have in common is that our creations always start from alien visions.

Your sculptures often combine metal and intricate details. How did your experiences with metalworking shape your artistic vision, and how does it inform your sculptures today?

Metal is a difficult material to shape by hand, but it’s solid and allows you to give strength to what you create. I’ve worked with it for as long as I can remember, teaching myself even welding. Over the years, it has allowed me to experiment with new shapes, as if it were a game. My works are not the result of specific research in the art world; I just create them, and I see it as a normal thing. I love proving to myself that even if something seems impossible, if you commit, you can achieve it! And I love complicating my life by making things longer and harder. For example, for the work called Parasys, I invested 730 hours of work to finish it.

Luca Lamperti | Parasys-bassa

You’ve mentioned a deep connection to alien shapes and creatures from your dreams. How do you translate these dreamlike visions into tangible works of art?

I’ve been dreaming of aliens since I was born, and they’ve become part of my being. I just reproduce what I see, perhaps adding details that were blurred in my mind. Sometimes, they are so real that I’m almost convinced these creatures really exist!

As a self-taught artist, how did you overcome the lack of formal education in the arts, and what advice would you give to other artists following a similar path?

Not having had a common artistic path and not having anyone teach me the basics to become an artist certainly made it more difficult and longer, but I believe that commitment and the desire to succeed in something will lead you to fulfill any wish. If you have a dream and don’t try, it remains just a dream! My advice is to always try and not listen to anyone. Those who make art do it first for themselves, and you should never get discouraged if things don’t go as they should. Every artist has a world that only they live in; the hard part is making others understand it.

Can you tell us more about the technical process behind your sculptures, particularly how you create such intricate details using metal?

My sculptures take shape starting from a metal skeleton, which is then covered with sheet metal and other elements. I use this technique as the base for the actual sculpture, which sometimes also includes wood or other materials such as polyester, and finally acrylics and LED lights. I don’t pay much attention to how it’s built; usually, when I start a sculpture, I already know how it will end. I’ve never made a sketch beforehand, drawing out the idea to develop. By dreaming of my creatures, I already have them imprinted in my mind, and I just shape them.