Visual talking

 

Alia Aly

First she listens with her eyes. Intently.

 

 

The language she hears could go unnoticed by others, except that portrait artist Alia Aly puts a visual transcript on paper, usually written in charcoal. Those images, in turn, interpret the message for others.

 

More people will have the chance to get that message, as Alia plans to open her art to a wider audience at the Hyde Park Open Studios (www.hydeparkopenstudios.org), slated for Dec. 6 and 7.

 

To me, her work is even more remarkable in that Alia typically shuns the assistance of any kind of telling prop in her art. For me, certain cues provide visual work with critical assistance, such as the musician with her guitar and the writer at his computer. But for Alia, her preference is to draw nude models, absent of environmental distractions.

 

“I try to get the gesture of the model,” said Alia, who meets weekly with other artists to paint and draw models. She studies the model’s posture, the way the light falls on the skin, the hints offered by the bone structure, and, of course, the facial expression.

 

One of her portraits, a close-up of a male model, shows the expression of someone whose internal gears are spinning. The eyebrows are slightly raised, the eyes are shifting to the side, and a subtle, lips-closed smile is beginning to crack.

 

Though the weekly workshop sessions last two hours or more, Alia can produce a portrait in about 45 minutes. For her, the bulk of the time in each session is spent studying all the details revealed by the model’s body language.

 

“You get to know the person when you look at them for that long,” Alia said.

 

Using her sight to listen seems — in a way — to have lessoned her need for audible sound. She’s a very soft-spoken person, and I found myself talking in low tones, too — as if our voices might interfere with her hearing.

 

She likes to work in pencil and charcoal because “it seems like it’s more of a direct medium,” said the graduate from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Noting that color can be visually distracting, Alia said the black and white nature of charcoal drawing emphasizes the principle of light and shadow.

 

For her more abstract projects, she tends to work in oil and acrylics. “I see working with color as kind of like a break from working in black and white,” she said.

 

Sources of inspiration include Wayne Thiebaud, Kathe Kollwitz and the treasure trove of ideas stored in the tiny sketch pads that she carries around with her. The pages feature renderings of birds, images from riding the commuter rail, and details captured from the city’s industrial scenes.

 

Some of these sketches can subsequently wind up in her abstract work. The sketches represent “an idea of something that sparked my imagination,” Alia said.

 

 

FIRST TIME

One of her earliest art memories is the fun she had taking art classes as a teen at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. “It was just so nice to go their after school, making art with friends.”

 

WORST TIME

It was a work-related guilt trip. While attending MassArt, Alia had just begun a class on drawing for painting — a class she had been eager to take. But on the very first day, she had to slip out of class early for work. She remembers feeling guilty about potentially offending the professor — but it appears no harm was done. The class turned out to be a favorite for her.