To see and to recreate

The artistic talent goes back as far as early school days. And yet, Picchio initially opted for a career in business. After decades of successful work in industry, he decided to turn his love of art into a profession. Although a totally new world opened up to him, he found similarities between his old and his new activities - both the entrepreneur and the artist rely on creativity, ideas and ingenuity as well as a feeling for spatial proportions and a strong visual memory.

To see and to recreate constitutes an essential element of artistic work. Having moved to Ticino, Picchio was overwhelmed by the beauty of his new surroundings. When he began to paint pictures of the villages, he noticed the segmentation of the closely knit architecture, the suggestion of vertical stripes or diagonals when observed in relationship with the mountainous background. At this point, the segment-art style was born. And style, of course, is of the utmost importance to an artist who follows the principle of transposing reality into abstraction.

To capture reality is the task of photography; but although Picchio is an expert photographer, he finds this manner of portrayal less exciting. It has very little in common with his style of painting, even if the subjects are the same - flowers for example. The connection between painting and photography is of a more indirect and subtle nature - photography can never bear the characteristics of abstraction. It is most exciting to see how the very details of a flower seen through the eyes of the artist are transposed into geometric order, which bears all the signs of scientific rules.

To achieve abstraction, Picchio creates flowing transitions which afford the theme secondary importance only and at the same time create an awareness that the color blue, for instance, may well be looked upon as a theme. Boundaries melt into one another when the skyline of a city like New York reflected in the water takes on the form of basic construction in a new impression. Spatial elements are achieved at the point where acrylic paints are applied lavishly with a spatula and the painting slowly takes on the form of a relief. The colors are applied without mixing them, and only in the eye of the viewer following the idea of divisionism - does the real impact of color come to life.

This opens up a third dimension, towards the unconventional pictorial objects in which the artist combined a group of painted sheets of the same size in order to create ensembles which vary when viewed from different angles.

about the Installations of Picchio

Like his sculptures, the new flexible wall installations by Picchio can be traced back to a unique style of painting, although here the artist goes a step further. Picchio has transferred the principle of segmentation, where he structures the canvas with stripes, to plastic objects - wooden cubes in a modular, uniform format - to which he applies acrylic paint with a spatula. Positioned individually, an approach which is more than feasible, they could be described as steles. However, the intention is somewhat different. The aim is to create a flexible artistic ensemble tailored to the actual spatial situation. In fact, one or preferably a group of steles can be leaned against a wall at an angle and in a variety of combinations. They may be moved freely and can be placed upside down, or turned on their axis or shifted anywhere in the room. As a more extreme solution, they may even be placed on the wall like paintings.

Instinct and Severity
In a Gallery where work is done constantly only to a selection of qualitative order, the Tondinelli located in  via Quattro Fontane in Rome, inaugurates Wednesday the solo exhibition of the famous German artist, Picchio [Dieter Specht], who lives and produces in Arcegno, in the Canton Ticino (Switzerland).
The title given to the actual appointment, Segments, could induce in deception: it could be thought of  geometric divisions of the painted surface, something of similar to the experience seen in the first decade of last century by the group of the so-called “golden session”: Leger,  Metzinger,  Fresnaye and others, an experience that marks the passage from the analytical cubism to the synthetic one.
But the complex operations of geometric-mathematics that in some ways is even shaped in sure meditated abstractionism and in dada are substantially strangers to the painting of  Picchio [Dieter Specht].

The joy of colors - intensive colors - and shape is the driving force behind the busy artist. And the joy he takes in the Ticino landscape, which he experiences afresh every day on his walks. He takes particular delights in the villages and the abundance of flowers. But he is open to almost any theme and has kept up a keen interest in the world of business. He looks upon special projects as a challenge which he relishes although it goes without saying that he only takes on such a commission on the condition that the brief provided by the client allows for total artistic freedom. Production processes with which the artist is familiar lead to pictorial impressions. Or he creates collages and assemblages for which he uses bank notes and coins or cuttings from financial newspapers as symbolic vehicles for critical as well as poetic statements.

The reason for this is the fact that none of Picchio's works is created spontaneously but follows a clear concept, which - with the help of a sketch - is concluded down to the last detail. This way of working is very much in line with the artist's temperament and his determined way of organizing things. And because he stores his sketches as well as all finished projects on his computer, the artist - with all his instinctive flamboyance - is in tune with technological advance. He gains important impulses from the fact that he can recreate and adapt groups of tried and tested themes by making use of high- tech tools, such as a fantastic view across cloud- covered mountain peaks in the Alps during a flight at various times of the day or the year.

The artist always comes back to what is closest to his heart: the Ticino landscape or the world of business; and if he finds these subjects stimulating, why look beyond? It was probably the inquisitive mind of his grandson whether he would be able to create graffiti which gave Picchio the idea for his calligraphic paintings. Primarily, they are synonymous with visualization, too. An optical consequence - paradoxically of phenomena which have been transposed in such a sensuously suggestive way that their verbal designation becomes almost immaterial.

A jumble of fractions of letters convey the “joie de vivre” of jazz, while those tied up in glowing colors refer to the joy of sex. And the letters of the word "stress" have been structured in such a frightening fashion that we can feel and absorb the threat it exudes in destroying a love of life.

Martin Kraft, Art Critic, Zurich/Switzerland

In view of this immense diversity, the viewer or the owner of the object will become a part of the overall installation. Indeed, the artist may suggest a certain way of grouping, however he will not dictate the manner in which the pieces have to be positioned. An important aspect of such installations which may be changed at will, either in a finely nuanced way or in their entirety, is the dimension of time. Even without spatial changes, the objects react very strongly to light - due to their monochrome effect of color. With their constant invitation to be regrouped, the installations exude a sense of playful joviality.

Martin Kraft, Art Critic, Zurich/Switzerland 
 

Here  is neither adventure, neither coding; in spite of the meticulous programming of the work, “very present and defined from the beginning”, on the supply of the energetic temperament of the artist, ready to organize his own work” it is the creative instinct that at last governs the poetic-fantastic result. It counts, of the rest, that these paintings consist of a compensated professionality and that they are objectively considerable. 
I limit myself to quote, between the others, “Crash”, a much beautiful one, even if the term, that  means crash, breach, bang, seems to contradict the delicate, vaporous charisma of the acrylic work.  Segments, which gives  the title to the entire exhibition, suggests, at everyone’s discretion the idea of a severe withdrawal of the usual cliché of imitation.

Prof. Renato Civello, Art Critic, Rome/Italy
in Secolo d’Italia, 1 Febbruary 2004
“Appuntamenti con l’Arte”