VIOLA'S PHOTOGRAPHIC WORKS

I never considered myself a photographer for the simple reason that I am not, nor do I have their mental habits, styles, interests or even specific technical skill.

And yet over the last ten years I've been using photography in different ways as an essential vehicle of artistic communication in a variety of expressive forms: conceptual, philosophical, analytical (The identity/the time, 1976), poetical, intimistical, narrative (Alice, 1977), subjective, lyrical, emotional (Norwid, 1979), magic, archetypical, alchemical (Night Archetypes, 1980; Stars, 1981; Venetian hearts, 1982).

In all of these cases I never considered the problem of photography in itself, far less the problem of so-called artistic photography, but I simply used an instrument I felt suitable to my imaginative needs because of specific qualities, in a relationship characterized by anomaly and arbitrariness, in other words by the utmost formal freedom, with the aim of creating an image that, in its own absolute value, would refer to a precise area of meaning and be recognizable for belonging to specific poetics, as I think should be the case for a painting.

So I have always tried to produce paintings by starting from the assumption that the languages of art may expand, as may their interference.

Photography allows me to act on the forms of reality in an immediate way by adapting them to the filter of the person who perceives them, just as painting allows me to clothe them with further meanings. (L. Viola, 1982)

Unidentified woman, photo and writing, 80 x 60 cm, 1976

Sanja, photo and writing, 70 x 50 cm, 1976

Against the time, photo and writing, 35 x 70 cm, 1976

Time goes by, photo and writing, 70 x 50 cm, 1976

Temporidentità s, photo, 70 x 120 cm, 1977

Alice (diptych), toned photo, painted wood, 30 x 40 cm each, 1977

Alice (triptych), photo, sand-blasted glass, 30 x 40 cm each, 1977

Alice (diptych), photo on aluminium, 30 x 40 cm each, 1977

Laius - Triptych of the father's house (particular), photo and writing,
30 x 40 cm each, 1978

The fall (triptych), photographic sequence, 90 x 35 cm, 1978

Venetian image, oil on photo, 30 x 40 cm, 1979

Water of fire, photo, 30 x 40 cm, 1979

Norwid's room (triptych), toned photo, 40 x 90 cm, 1979

Norwid's dawn (tryptich), photo, painted wood, 32 x 126 cm, 1979

Moonlit night scene in Mazzorbo (oval), toned canvas, 60 x 38 cm, 1980

Mystic centre (particular of the sequence), cibachrome, 32 x 42 cm each, 1980

Archetype of the night, cibachrome, 35 x 50 cm, 1980

Mystic dawn, painted photo and acrylic on wood, 50 x 60 cm, 1980

Storm, painted photo, 30 x 40 cm, 1980

Norwid's room, photo, 30 x 40 cm, 1980

Star, mixed media on photo, 30 x 40 cm, 1980

Venetian image, mixed media on photo, 35 x 25 cm, 1982

Love and Devil, photo, indian ink and tempera on paper, painted wood,
40 x 30 cm, 1981

Luciana resting in the grass, mixed media and gold on photo, 17 x 24 cm, 1981

Fantastic landscape at Torcello, mixed media on photo, 24 x 17,5 cm, 1981

Venetian heart, mixed media and gold on emulsified canvas, 110 x 100 cm, 1983

Venetian heart, photo, water-colour and gold, 20 x 20 cm, 1981

Venetian heart, mixed media and gold on emulsified canvas, 75 x 90 cm, 1982

Stars, gold-dust on photo, 90 x 130 cm, 1983

Star, mixed media on emulsified canvas, 100 x 140 cm, 1983

Star, mixed media on emulsified canvas, 30 x 40 cm, 1983

Venetian window, mixed media on photo, 17,5 x 24 cm, 1984

Protected wildlife area with copper, lasercopy, copper, patina, 33 x 43 cm, 1990

Protected wildlife area with copper, lasercopy, copper, vernis noir, 33 x 43 cm, 1990

Protected wildlife area, lasercopy, iron, pigments, varnish, 33 x 43 cm, 1990

Protected wildlife area, lasercopy, iron, vernis noir, 33 x 43 cm, 1990

Protected wildlife area, lasercopy, iron, crayon, 33 x 43 cm, 1990

Portrait - taken again, mixed media, 10 x 15 cm, 1993

Portrait-taken again, mixed media, 10 x 15 cm, 1993

For more information please

Luigi Viola