They say
about me

Dicono
di me

 For the “Ripetta ‘92” Prize, at “Spazio Visivo” Art Gallery, Rome

He loves to paint  evocative  and  fascinating romantic  landscapes like  Venice, but he also experiments a more metaphysical style, when he represents a night boulevard lit by some steet-lamps; thecontrast of light and darknessportrays the inner conflict that is typical of one who lives with passion a life that would be  otherwise void of value.

“Il Corriere di Roma”, January 30th, 1992.

For the solo exhibition at “Il Torchio” Gallery - Rome 1993

After some collective shows, Enrico Vittucci proposes this solo exhibition at Art Center “Il Torchio”, with 20 oil-on-canvas works, well representative of his  creative itinerary. Contemplation of nature is the fundamental intuition of this young artist, that with great diligence and progressive maturity is developing a remarkable personal style. Twisted branches, dense foliage full of light and dazzling chromaticism reveal how the artist spontaneously reached the authentic sources of his inspiration. A young artist, Vittucci,   rich of a vigorous energy, who will be able to give us intense emotions..

Liviana Maccari

For the solo Exhibition at “Art’èGene” Gallery- Rome 2008

“Vittucci the painter of light”

Vittucci’s painting is dominated by a vital tension, by an uncontainable force, or better it is itself an uncontainable force  in everything it represents, both in peculiar images (“Olive tree in the shade”) and in complex images (“Chimneys”). It breaks all traditional structures becoming light and colour that   floods and overflows everywhere, creating dimensions of colour  that intersect, extend and gush into actual alive vaguely metaphysic constructions.  Colour becomes function that represents the world around the artist in modules of light, an always deep and bright colour seems to scream light. Colours mix and tangle up to the point of invoking confusion sometimes (“Confusion”) because the artist is only interested in their rhythm, in their splendor that expresses the dominant feeling of the painter, feeling that is  love for life and art as freedom.

Giuseppe Sciacca

MEDIAPOLITIKA Online weekly magazine - 20/10/2010

Interview to Enrico Vittucci,

painter of enchanted woods and timeless metropolis

On an ordinary day one can happen to bump into an outdoor exhibit, in the very center of Rome. It is the art show “Re di Roma”, organized by the association Art Studio Tre that proposes twice a year, in May and October, over one thousand works of selected painters, sculptors and graphic artists. Among the blaze of creativity that brightens Piazza della Repubblica, the location for the show from the 8th to the 17th of October, Roman painter Enrico Vittucci’s canvasses stand out. These are paintings that not even the most inattentive passerby can avoid noticing, attracted by the chromatic fluorescence, and above all by the original style in which urban landscapes and naturalistic elements are depicted. The intense emotions that these works can transmit are half way between metaphysical dream and the all real concreteness of an almost futurist dynamism. We interviewed Enrico Vittucci to learn more about the secret of his art.

At first sight what strikes most about your paintings is their chromatic force. You use much primary colours red and blue, that you place side by side in a yet harmonic contrast, which is characterized by an exceptional brightness of the depicted subjects. For instance, in the triptych “Red Wood” (2002) it looks as if the tree trunks give off light. Which painting technique do you use to achieve this effect of amazing brightness?

I paint almost only with a palette knife on canvas. The oil colours I use are enriched with fluorescent pigments (red, orange, pink), which, mixed with a cadmium red base, and placed next to blue or turquoise that enhance the contrast, reach that almost glaring brightness.

Recurring geometric forms, multiple vanishing points, sensation of movement, speed. In your art one can discern traces of at least two artistic trends: Cubism and Futurism. How would you define your painting poetry? What kind of research led you to this direction?

I am only a painter, not an art critic that is able to define, ascribe or classify a type of painting, but I can certainly say that more than a direction, I found a starting point. This consists of the artistic trends of Cubism and Futurism. This is where I started from to find a personal way that can represent my “point of view” of reality. Each one of us can perceive the real vision of an object or a landscape in a different way, drawing emotions or feelings that vary subjectively. From this the need to alter the tone of colours to highlight a detail or a feeling.

Among the subjects you love to paint there are tree trunks and elevated ways. Apparently they have nothing in common, yet the red color, used to paint both, could be considered a symbolic meaningful leitmotif. That is, there seems to be a chromatic symbolism that encourages a second level of interpretation of the painting, a layer where the world of nature and that of culture, with their branches and street ramifications, are in secret relationship. Do you agree with this interpretation?

I try to paint adding tones of color, like a musician that can transpose an entire melody to another tonality, elevating as many tones or half tones as he likes. This way the wood of a trunk becomes red emphasizing one of the primary colors that constitute its natural color. The red of elevated ways comes instead from the real color of the Eastern elevated way in Rome, from which I take inspiration. Indeed, there is no continuity between these two subjects, it would even be more correct to speak of a contrast. In fact, if in a natural landscape the element I prefer is a tree, it is true that in an urban landscape the characterizing element to me is a bridge or an elevated road. The contrast is in the motivation. I choose the first for its beauty, majesty, mystery of shapes and the strong imprint of nature. The second I choose for its unpleasantness,   monstrosity, rigidity of shapes and the great impact of human action over a succumbing nature. Then bright red represents both a positive feeling, in the beauty of the nature of a tree, and a negative feeling, caused by the sight of a such unnatural urban landscape. The red color is then used to symbolize strong and contrasting sensations, that sometimes can be found together on the same canvas.

Where can we see your paintings?

At the moment at my studio at home and at the art show “Re di Roma”. I also occasionally take part in various exhibits and shows.

Laura Guadalupi

For the International Fair of Contemporary Art “Expo Arte 2012”

The structures that Enrico Vittucci builds pictorially are visual exemplifications, they are chromatic relations that the artist transforms into analytic elements of optical matrix. His images become analytic reflections over the world that the artist reads in pure volumes with a geometric morphology. Close to the vision of early Cubism, the canvasses focus on objects that manage nonetheless to create a macroscopic perspective. The spaces left void by the elements of the composition are the interstices through  which the eyes adventure, where the tones of blue and red follow one another at times gloomy or radiant when they leave space to yellow. It is anyways shape and object that concern the artist, the unitary and modular character of whatever is artificial, like urban landscapes as ensembles of cubes or parallelepipeds, or the sharp lines of the woods, whose trees stand out like columns in a still space. The chromatic ranges live of harsh contrasts that accompany logic and analytic formal buildings softening their  volumes and playing with childlike simplification.

Graziella Melania Geraci