Piero Mollica

What type of printing do you prefer?

I favor printing processes that convey maximum depth, precision, and physical presence to the image. I work primarily with media such as Chromaluxe and Diasec, because they allow me to achieve an extremely sharp, luminous, almost suspended surface.
For me, printing is never simply a final output: it is an integral part of the language. The choice of material directly impacts the perception of the work, its relationship with light and space. I always seek a rendering that is both rigorous and sensorial, capable of maintaining absolute formal clarity while conveying an almost immaterial vibration.

What comes first, the idea or the fascination with the material? In other words, does the artistic-photographic project come first, or is it inspired by particular processes or installations that struck you?

The idea always comes first.
My work takes shape from an intuition, from a vision tied to time, light, and the structure of space. Only later does the material intervene, which must be coherent and almost inevitable with respect to what I want to express.
That said, it is with the slow passage of time—and sometimes a whole day isn’t enough—that an increasingly close dialogue between design and technique is built: deeply perceiving the essence of materials and their synergy with light opens new directions, suggests variations, and stimulates the eye. But it is never the material that generates the work: rather, it is the tool that allows the idea to find its most complete form.

Do you have any Masters you look up to and feel close to?

I feel a strong affinity with artists like Vermeer, Edward Hopper, and Wim Wenders, despite their very different artistic languages.
What interests me about Vermeer is his construction of light, his ability to make silence visible. Hopper taught me suspension, that dimension in which space becomes psychological. Wenders, on the other hand, influenced my way of observing the contemporary world, especially the relationship between architecture and narrative.
More than direct references, I consider them subterranean presences: a continuous thread that runs through my work and that has to do with the idea of ​​time, waiting, and contemplation.

What is striking about your shots is the ability to see entire worlds in portions of the image, as if you were inviting the observer to find the infinitely large in the very small, in portions of architecture extrapolated from the overall image.

We find this imaginative exercise in the scientific tradition of analysis and discovery of what escapes our eye, and even before that in Philosophy.
I am thinking precisely of Democritus’ atomism, of his desire for knowledge of what surrounds us and what structures our reality.
These influences are casually flanked by a purely artistic approach, which recreates real modular patterns in the sequences of windows, mirrored surfaces, flights of stairs and scenographic vertical tensions.

The very elegant abstract images generated by this selective process have clear references deriving from the Optical Art of the 60s and 70s of the twentieth century and from geometric abstractionism; In fact, I find that your way of expertly decontextualizing the fragments of an architectural image gives them an aesthetic, symbolic, artistic and, why not, also decorative value.

I really like the idea that people can hang portions of the skyscraper in which they live in their home, above their sofa.
It would be like carrying within oneself fragments of an external, radically urbanized world that surrounds us and sometimes dominates us, making it more manageable and harmless. Even beautiful.

Do you think that your art and your way of photographing arises from the need to give another meaning to what we see or does it arise from an aesthetic tension aimed at seeking perfection?

I believe it arises from both tensions, but not separately.
My work starts from a process of subtraction: isolating fragments of reality, often architectural, to reveal a hidden structure. In this sense there is an analytical, almost scientific component linked to the desire to understand and recompose the visible.
At the same time, this process is driven by a strong aesthetic need. The search for balance, proportion and visual rhythm is not a formal exercise as an end in itself, but a tool to make the image more essential, legible and intense.
When a fragment of the city becomes almost abstract, when it loses its original function and is transformed into a sign, pattern, structure, a new space opens up: the observer no longer simply recognizes a building, but enters a different perceptive dimension.
If this makes architecture more intimate, more accessible also on an emotional level, then yes: I believe that my work manages to transform reality, without ever betraying it.

Future projects?

I’m working on a project that establishes a dialogue between Italy and Japan through the exploration and comparison of their mutual excellence: two seemingly distant cultures yet profoundly similar in their relationship with time, space, and silence. The idea is to construct a visual journey of parallels and contrasts, in which humanity and the space around us become a shared language, capable of crossing diverse geographies and sensibilities.
At the same time, I continue to develop research focused on the three-dimensionality of the image: works constructed on multiple levels, in which photography emerges from the surface and becomes an object, a physical presence in space.
Ultimately, my interest remains the same: finding new ways to bring light, form, and perception into dialogue.