Nevada-based artist Luke Rizotto’s multimedia, site-specific installations are vaporous portals into personal psychic pathways.
Reno, Nevada / lukerizzotto.com / @lukewaaarm
“The yearning for something else is, to many, what drives the desire to explore and experience something new—whether that’s far-off physical spaces, nonexistent memories, or utopian tomorrows,” says Luke Rizzotto, a multimedia artist, musician, designer, and educator, whose work examines memory and nostalgia.
Through liminal dreamscapes, site-specific installations, ambient soundscapes, and components of yesterday’s technology like VHS tapes, Rizzotto creates imagery that feels like a journey through personal psychic pathways.
“This feeling of liminality is pronounced when looking out at the land while traveling, and especially while driving—watching the landscape slowly morph and change over time, becoming something else,” says Rizzotto. By documenting his own journeys, Rizzotto seeks to instill in viewers a sense that they are witnesses to the passage of time on all things, that we are all subject to natural processes and will eventually erode to nothing again.
Rizzotto, who is originally from the New Orleans area, now lives and creates in Reno, Nevada, where hues of desert sunsets infuse much of the color palette of his work. Saturated pastel purples, aqua blues, pinks, and greens verging on neon infuse the artworks with a vaporwave vibe.
From his VHS Vistas project, which places old televisions playing reels of lo-fi footage of highways and nature landscapes in different locales, to his graphic design artworks, Rizzotto’s aim is to immerse viewers in the emotional space of traveling and yearning.
To achieve this, Rizzotto moves between digital recreations and on-site installations. Worn-in chairs and couches also feature throughout Rizzotto’s installations, acting as pedestals for televisions and places to sit and watch. Rizzotto says, “From here, the viewer can attempt to make sense of the fantastical forms in front of them, not unlike a dream.”
