In one of those glorious, absurd SNL moments from 1979, Steve Martin and Bill Murray shuffle across a set in tourist drag, gawking behind the camera and muttering, “What the hell is that?” We never learn what that is. The not-knowing, the delicious edge of mystery, becomes the whole point. This very same sliver of suspended understanding—where answers remain out of reach but intensely felt—permeates the uncanny world of Esaí Alfredo’s paintings.

Operating out of Miami, Alfredo doesn’t paint scenes so much as he paints enigmas. His large-scale oil works hum with silence, populated by male figures gazing into the beyond—at fires, falling debris, or perhaps nothing at all. Viewers are left squinting into the void with them, acutely aware of something happening just outside the frame. A puff of smoke, a flaming sky, a presence unannounced: every element is a cinematic clue without a resolution.

Painting Freeze-Frames from an Invisible Film

Alfredo’s paintings aren’t snapshots; they’re storyboards. But not for films we know—for films that don’t exist. Think of his canvases as paused frames in a science fiction thriller co-directed by Alfred Hitchcock and Michael Mann. The colors are seductive: glowing pinks, Miami teals, and ominous blacks pulled straight from the neon-soaked world of Miami Vice. And yet, there’s no kitsch here. His aesthetic is less nostalgia, more noir—filtered through the lens of existential dread.

Each work begins not with brush or canvas but with sketchbook renderings and carefully staged photo references. He choreographs his compositions like a director blocks a scene—real actors, real lighting, real tension. Then, on his iPad, the storyboarded fantasy begins to materialize. Once the digital scaffolding is in place, Alfredo allows himself the joy of improvisation in oil. The colors bend toward the surreal. The shadows grow longer. And something in the scene begins to hum with the uneasy frequency of the uncanny.

Color as Character: From Spielberg to the Stars

My biggest influences in terms of color have been old movies, science fiction, theater, and the cinematography of films by Steven Spielberg and Alfred Hitchcock.

– Alfredo says.

You see it instantly. There’s Spielberg’s awe-struck gaze, Hitchcock’s psychological framing, and the kind of lighting scenarios that scream “impossible” but still work—because they have to. Color, for Alfredo, isn’t decorative. It’s dramaturgical. It tells the story. Or at least hints at it.

In his recent series STARLESS, exhibited with Spinello Projects at EXPO CHICAGO, this spectral use of color reaches full throttle. The skies are empty—no stars, no constellations, just void. Instead, objects plummet from above while the figures on the ground react in various states of paralysis or fear. Magentas, icy blues, and glowing lilacs set an atmosphere thick with tension. These are the moments before the scream, the breath before impact.

Narratives That Refuse to Close

What makes Alfredo’s work so compelling isn’t what it says—it’s what it refuses to. These aren’t paintings that answer questions. They are questions, dressed in cinematic lighting and pastel noir. There’s always a “that” lingering just off-canvas. A catastrophe, a revelation, or perhaps just another moment lost to the ether. We, like the SNL tourists, are left wondering: What the hell is that?

It’s tempting to call Alfredo a storyteller, but he’s more of a myth-maker. His images don’t resolve; they reverberate. They ask you to stare with the same helpless curiosity as the painted figures themselves—witnesses to some great unknown, unable to act, yet unable to look away.

And really, isn’t that what great art is supposed to do?