Excerpts from Critical Comments and Writings

“The artworks of Aldo Spizzichino reside at the intersection of three different fields that appear distinct on the surface, but in reality are profoundly linked: art, mathematics, and computer science. The ontogenesis of his art production through the years follows the historic interplay between these three fields. In particular, we can find in Aldo's works several good examples of this interplay that illustrate three different levels of interaction: at first glance the mathematical object - polygons, solids, curves, surface and knots - reveals it self on the canvas. Then, at a deeper level, where the mathematical structures - the golden ratio, symmetry, tessellation and prospective - are the backbones of the artwork. Finally at the deepest level where the software and hardware tools replace the traditional tools (like the brushes, the colors and canvas) Naturally, as Gauss said, a building needs to remain standing when the scaffold used to build it is removed. The works of Aldo not only stand on their own, but they fly, showing that the distinction between the artist, the mathematician and the computer scientist is merely a preconception and the interaction between art, math and software is the reality we are living in now.” Piergiorgio Odifreddi (2017)

“...Aldo Spizzichino's digital images are generated by the permuting paradigms of his visual search, a rigorous connective process between morphogenetic analysis and possible cognitive fields, from the single constructive fragment to the totality of cosmic infinity. This immense adventure grounds its horizon on analogies between art and science, visual language and mathematical logic, not without the indispensable and healthy irony that rescues art from being too serious, a self-celebration of itself. Spizzichino moves on the thread of robbing unexpected feelings by using unusual sizes, invents serendipitous rules, urges unusual surprises and illusive charms, pushes the logical mechanisms of space toward the rhymes of irrational, creates slippage points between design thinking and imagination, oscillates between the formal clarity and the imprecise ambiguity of the unknown. The tale of the images involves the look with multiple forms of invention, arouses wonder in the face of the restless structures of the visible, plays with the optical ambivalence of the constructive modules, transmits maximum perceptual tension with essential compositional variations....” Claudio Cerritelli (2016)

“...A search that seeks to translate into aesthetically usable geometries and structures that, though often attributed to objects of common experience, are iconized in wise visual metaphors. Figural outcomes that, far from being hieratical simulacra wrapped in their fixity, certainly show, in addition to a refined compositional taste, a strong symbolic and emotional impact, inviting the viewer to follow a path of discovery and knowledge... .... The computer revolution of the last few decades has made it possible to bend computer hardware and software to the most demanding requirements of visual communication, but Spizzichino has looked at this with some detachment, with the curiosity to see where one can come up with a do-it-yourself approach, more fit to provide experiential fallouts. While all this may be surprising today, four hundred years ago Galileo Galilei, who also had artistic sensibility, said: "For as much as the means with which one imitates are far from the things to be imitated, the more imitation is marvelous." G. Galilei (Works XI). We need to enter the Spizzichino language slowly to fully enjoy the charm of a world that is spreading to our eyes and our minds.” Giuseppe Stafforini (2014)

“...The artistic activity of Aldo Spizzichino, who has had years of research in the field of physics, occupies a unique place on the border between art and science, expressing a creative language halfway between a classical concept of art and the wise use of contemporary technologies, oriented towards a pedagogical approach as well as an aesthetic. Spizzichino uses computer graphics to visualize mathematical concepts, giving concrete form to scientific notions in a context of artistic expressiveness. The approach to the technique - even before the formal analysis - through which the artist elaborates his works is particularly significant in understanding the originality and richness of sense of this path. Choosing to work with a personally-built software, giving up the convenience of commercial packages (which provide easy-to-use, reasonably prerecorded effects), is an integral part of a creative process based on vector graphics, which consists of producing images through computing algorithms which assign coordinates and color values at every point. In this way, the mathematical ‘medium’ becomes an integral part of the artistic process, representing the very essence of the shapes that make up the image: each work is the result of a specific program that produces a single file. In addition, unlike most digital art, Spizzichino's images are designed to be enjoyed on paper, not on monitors, thus finding full expression in the ‘classical’ form of the picture. The use of Vector graphics allows the artist to tackle classic themes of morphogenesis and geometry of nature, from the regular and semiregular partitions of plane and space, to labyrinthine, arboreal, spiral-shaped structures, etc., in a slow progress towards the complexity, which by itself constitutes a great intellectual and aesthetic adventure. Complexity is one of the fascinating mathematical crucial knots upon which computer graphics allows one to reflect, verifying how this concept can be misleading: Very complex designs can actually be generated with relatively simple algorithms, whereas seemingly simple forms can in practice often be difficult to obtain... Thanks to the ability to convey mathematical concepts in evocative and recognizable forms, the image that emerges from this creative process becomes a spectator's cognitive experience as well as aesthetic. The approach to the work thus becomes a journey of gaze and mind into a magical territory, in balance between reality and imagination, abstraction and concreteness: at a first impression, the painting appears as a ‘simple’ representation of known shapes, landscapes, and objects, while a more careful examination reveals that what we see is in reality the expression of concepts that are not-at-all simple, and that the lines that fascinate our eye are the result of algorithms, equations, formulas ....” Francesca Porreca (2008)

“...These ‘graphic " by Aldo Spizzichino are truly mathematically grounded. It is true that there is a great aesthetic choice, for example, in decisions about shapes, explicit references to reality, the taste of surprise in tracking a real figure, the flavor of using technological modes that are now antiquated to reach his aesthetic purpose (Aldo uses plotters now abandoned by all, which are the only ones able to support the pen markers he wants). But mathematics is here the real master, which dominates the language itself, and most importantly, the syntactic structure. Yet, to accomplish one of his ‘experiences,’ Aldo must also subdue mathematics, force it to do what he has In mind, transforming equations and languages into the subjects / objects of his pictorial will. The subject of each work is not the real object that our brain recognizes, but it is its mathematical creativity, the one that allows it to get that form. In front of a work by Aldo, you may well look at the object that reveals itself, eggs, flowers, vases, ... But, more important, try get the underlying structure, to interpret the curves that those forms determine, that those forms describe, that those forms create. Then it will be possible and lawful to talk without mystification about ‘art and math’.” Bruno D’Amore (2003)