Artist

Giorgio Di Maio

Birthplace

Naples

Living in

Naples

Education

Architecture, Università Federico II di Napoli

Medium

Photography

«I photograph harmony, that is to say, sets of disparate elements that are in tension with each other in order to recompose them in a unitary image that conveys a state of calm»

Photographer Giorgio di Maio's eye has retained the mischievousness of a scugnizzo, that cheeky kid from Naples who makes fun of tourists, rejoices in being called a buffone, and gets out of any scrape with his quick wit. Was it this mischievousness that prompted the former architect, a follower of Frank Lloyd Wright's refined style, to reveal through his photographs the harmony that lies dormant behind the disorder of scaffolding and buildings under construction?

Giorgio di Maio reinvents these everyday settings, to which we do not pay attention (except in the case of prolonged noise), with a sense of staging, space and proportion, where sheet metal, tarpaulins, cranes, windows, graffiti or advertising hoardings become stretches of abstract colour or the motifs of a skilful and structured composition. A self-taught photographer, he practices his art with a taste for craftsmanship and a sense of observation inherited from his initial training. The exact model number of his Canon camera is of little importance to him, he refuses to use great technical means, only keeps the successful shots and discards the others; this apparent casualness hides the ideal of an underlying spiritual quest. “When I photograph, it is absolutely necessary to be alone," he says.

To find the hidden harmony, you have to enter the universal flow, in a contemplative state of symbiosis with everything around you, starting with the light. Like Leopardi, his favourite poet, he seeks to touch 'the infinite', the essence of things and the depth of being, in a word peace, through the details nestled in the 'boundless spaces' and 'superhuman silence' of the surrounding nature.

Even if his favourite playground remains that of Italian cities and their ever-changing architecture.

Text Sonia Pavlik