Speaking through colors

Artists are wordless storytellers, and it’s never been more true for Colombia-based Carolina Rodríguez Fuenmayor, who goes by alterlier. The way her pieces speak—from the way each swirl of color hugs one another to each movement and expression fused into the transcendently human figures—embraces anyone who sees it into a world of vibrance and thought.

You can check her work out on SuperRare and Foundation. You can also find her on Instagram and Twitter.

Don’t lose your head (or slice it open) over her artworks.

Your artworks bring out a profoundly artistic side of the human psyche. What drives you to access that level of human touch and channeling it into your art?

I think it’s my humanity, actually. I mean, every time we decide to put something out there we are somehow explaining to the world what matters to us, what is interesting about life, and what we cannot explain with words but made possible through art. I wouldn't say my work brings out a side of the human psyche in general; I would say it just brings out mine which perhaps resembles someone else’s—or perhaps it doesn't at all. It's just my particular view of this world.

I noticed a lot of depictions of the human physique sliced open in some way. Is that a metaphor for something?

Like I said before, yes and no. What it symbolizes for sure is the projection of my mind translated into images, and that means a whole bunch of metaphors!

On your SuperRare site, people can really be submerged in the whole experience of your art not only through the visuals you provide, but also with a delicately worded narrative paragraph to go with it. Can you tell us more about that?

I just really like to think of any image as the cover art for a whole unique world and that deserves a little bit of introduction and sometimes narrative. I hate explaining myself when I'm showing a piece; I don't think you actually should, but if you can introduce the viewer to the world of the piece it's easier to bring out their own interpretation.

A lot of your style can be traced back to Impressionist (and probably Symbolist) movements of art. What drew you to these specific styles?

I can say that even though I understand why people can see that, I don’t like to be placed in some sort of movement. I feel stupid talking about what style or artistic ideal I'm following, so I stopped doing that a long time ago. I like to think that what draws me into a particular style or way of creating is the mood of myself and the world combined.

You share a lot of the black-and-white sketches of your artworks before eventually sharing the fully colored ones. Whenever your black-and-white sketches cross the boundary into a world of vibrant colors, it’s like you are breathing a new life into your pieces. Can you walk us through that process?

I love line arts, I love inking, I love black and white. If I could feel complete with those, my art would be only black and white pieces. There's something, however, that just screams at me looking for color and hues. That's my ultimate battle in life—the battle and love for color. The process is simple: I make doodles, I make better doodles, I clean the sketch, make a full on line art, and start coloring.

Some of your artworks are faintly reminiscent of the style of Studio Ghibli. Do you actually draw inspiration from there?

Well I love Ghibli, but I wouldn't say my main inspiration comes from it. Instead I would say I'm a weeb. I've been obsessed with everything Japan-related since I was twelve. I started looking at anime and manga as my main inspiration for everything that I did, and that segued into video games and other Japanese-influenced artists. But I would say anime and manga in general are my inspiration.

Coming from Bogota, Colombia must be a unique experience as an NFT artist. What is it like there, and has any of your cultural/ethnic background made it to your artworks?

When I started in crypto back in February of this year, I was clueless about everything. It was mainly because in Colombia, at that time, crypto was just another form of a scam (it still is, TBH), meaning nobody actually cared. Thus it was very, very, very hard to—for example—buy my first amount of ETHs so that I could mint my first piece. It was a nightmare. There are a couple of things that have changed in these past months and it's getting easier, but there's still not a lot of knowledge. If someone’s interested, it’s just because they think it's a goldmine. There's still no culture around the community and the implications that crypto could bring to the future.

I’m not sure if I’ve intentionally included any part of my cultural background into my art, but what I can say for sure is that it’s there. It's impossible to not spill some parts of my identity in my work but I'm not even aware of that when I'm creating something. It’s just part of imbuing the artist into the pieces, giving life and soul to an inanimate object.

courtesy of the now defunct Personalities blog by Creator Collection