8-year-old artist Alf creates a collection for Moooi Carpets
Renowned for his extraordinary talent and boundless imagination, 8-year-old artist Alf Bärbel Wit has collaborated with Moooi Carpets to unveil an extraordinary carpet collection, showcasing Alf’s distinctive line art. Celebrating that imagination knows no bounds and uniqueness is not limited to someone’s status, experience, or age.
From the age of three, Alf exhibited a prodigious flair for painting, crafting abstract patterns sourced purely from his vivid imagination. His art, characterized by a meditative ambiance through intricate details, lines, and shapes, draws parallels with the freedom expressed by iconic artists such as Basquiat, Appel, Kline, Miró, Haring, and Kandinsky, yet retains a unique and recognizable style, offering a personal reflection of Alf’s perspective on the world.
“I sometimes wish that the whole world was made out of lines only,” Alf says.
Alf’s art has gained widespread recognition, gracing the cover of Monument magazine, leading drawing workshops at WeTransfer and the Art Academy of Maastricht, and adorning a 6-meter mural at Wieden + Kennedy Amsterdam, captivating art enthusiasts globally. Based in Amsterdam, Alf sells his work via Instagram, reaching admirers as far as Paris and New York.
A cuddly work of art
For Moooi Carpets, Alf embarked on his largest drawing to date. While creating, Alf and his family could not use their living room for weeks, since they had to move all the furniture to the sides. Playfully acknowledging the irony of people walking on his art, Alf expresses delight in the transformation of his paper-based creations into soft, tactile materials.
“It’s so funny that people will walk on my art,” Alf says. “But I especially love that my art has become soft and hairy, and I can pet it like a cat! Haha.”
Happy mistakes
In his usual practice Alf never titles his work, because of the intuitive process in which he lets his work grow spontaneously without too many thoughts before and during. He likes that his work feels like a journey or discovery, with no top or bottom, and everyone can see something else in it. But since Alf always listens to music while creating his art, and he often gets comments his work feels like jazz, he named his carpets after some of his favourite songs; ‘Everything now’ and ‘Blinding Lights’.
Alf concludes: “Hopefully my work will inspire people to dream, to draw themselves, and make happy mistakes. My work is full of it!”