THE ILLUSTRATIONS OF VITO CARTA

WHEN THE IMAGE TALKS

In the limitless and dispersive universe of visual communication, Vito Carta approaches the illustration in a quite original manner.

The present day scenario of images, by now full of excesses and extravagances, is subjected to a curious process of “perceptive purification” through the playful Vito Carta's eyes. They are a real filter which transforms a purely aesthetic and decorative reality in extraordinary and dreamlike spaces, based on reality, to become eventually a synthesis of an internalized vision. It is with this assumption that the author starts, in 2009, working on the six original illustration boards of considerate dimensions (200x280cm) for a particularly prestigious client: De Agostini publisher. The appreciation for his artistic work is evident considering that the three of his works are present in the Assembly Hall of the De Agostini Headquarters in Novara.

The De Agostini series of illustrations is dedicated to various concepts and themes related to the publishing. The subject matter deals with the communication and the analysis of the world of publishing, cartography, publishing projects abroad and collecting.The idea of a hot air balloon as the symbol of the world of publishing is brilliant; an image of lightness which describes the flight of imagination possible only through reading. On the other hand, the world of maps reminds the ancient symbolism of Euclidean dimension, while Pandora's Box is related to collecting and is represented as the parody of the myth. The whole work comes out of the author's mind as a kind of a play with time, the past, present and future. In this case, the author's work interprets the subjects according to his personal vision and style, meeting perfectly iconographic needs of the publisher. Each time there is a new research, that reveals itself spontaneously in the artist's unpredictable style.

His ideas take form and evolve in a process of a more or less free individual reinterpretation, transfiguring the reality and reaching the illusion.  In 2010 he was commissioned six illustration boards by the Cedam Publisher, together with the cover illustrations for the 2010 edition of the Nuova Grammatica Cedam, therefore a task with a didactic and educational finality.CEDAM had a specific request: the illustration of the four linguistic abilities: speaking, listening, writing and reading. So the author reinterprets the grammatical concepts making parallelism with the music universe. The concept of syntax becomes a concert without orchestra, a seascape with the ocarina flying in the air and two manlike violins seized immobile in their extraordinary loneliness. In 2011 the author made 41 boards to illustrate the high school text books of geometry and mathematics, entitled Mathclub, together with the relative covers for CEDAM Publisher; a new challenge that presents recurrent motives such as the sphere, symbol and the concept of a unit. Again, the language of the music is resumed and adapted to illustrate mathematical and geometric matters. It is the reign of the numbers and forms which blend and unravel in the artist's visual imagination. The artist does not renounce the human element which he constantly investigates, nor does he give up the use of the landscape as the emblem of his photographic image often represented as an ethereal and silent space.

An illustrator usually remains in his recognizable world, having a coherent and uniformed style: the setting remains the same, so do the personalities that populate it. In case of Vito Carta this traditional conception of the illustration has been overcome being intended as the transfiguration of the reality. He abandons the homogeneity and 'the immediate identification' of the style for a new artistic approach: each illustration has its own life and its own liberty of thought. The result is that the visual communication of Vito Carta appears unusual, hermetic and complex. The author's universe of images opens new horizons confirming his courage to start a new visual adventure.

Dott.ssa Sabrina Falzone

Trad. Dott.ssa Sanja Kocman