In my works there are stars, comets, cosmic clouds, but also fantastic antimatter galaxies, negative skies, cosmic crystals, automatic probes, present and future Space Stations. A real impressionistic vision of space. Cultural and practical dissemination of astronomical knowledge. How do you combine this passion with art? Is art a way to spread astronomy? Man is the only animal made to look up to the sky. So much history of civilization has been guided by astronomical observation. Now that we really can know the depths of the universe it seems that the sky is reserved for scientists, but we return to the ancient wonder just away from artificial lights. The dissemination of astronomy is marked by beauty and amazement. Art feeds on the same things: beauty and amazement. I continue to keep myself updated in the scientific field and to experiment painting techniques capable of representing objects that have been known for some time or have just been discovered, along with scientific hypotheses, imagining how they could be. The genre of my painting was defined as Astronomy or Space Art, a genre initiated by the American Chesley Bonestell (1888-1986), who has elaborated many realistic scenarios of future space explorations, often for N.A.S.A., with a decidedly figurative cut. In Europe, the same genre tended to a stylization towards abstract forms, taking an example from Futurism. In my works I experiment the most varied materials and techniques: from oil colors or acrylics on canvas, to diptychs, triptychs or polyptychs, to resin sculptures, or steel and aluminum. I propose the wonder and amazement for the Universe, but with scientific reference. At the base of every painting there is the knowledge of the subject. Every work is unique, I never repeat myself. The real technical difficulty lies in the fact that the celestial bodies are luminous and there is no play of light and shadow on which the normal paintings are based. I have to represent a light source and give it depth: this problem is solved each time in a different way. I study texts, magazines, I surf the Internet: for every astronomical subject I am inspired by different images, never a single one, together with the feeling of being close enough to perceive its depth. The time needed to find the push to achieve what I have in mind may be months, but it also requires experimenting with different techniques and materials to get the result. Sometimes the appearance of the finished work surprises me too. It is true that reality overcomes fantasy. Giorgio Tardonato
The beauty of the cosmos takes on a particular value if it is enhanced by the work of someone who knows how to guess the union between the art form created by Man and another form of Art, mysterious flavour, made up of galaxies, remote solar systems and originated from the cosmos itself. The wonder created by nature comes to intertwine in the infinite amazement that feeds the questions of the human being from its inception, pushing it in search of the mystery that gave rise to everything that surrounds us, it combines the creative force, thirst to discover ever new perspectives that is proper to the human and gives rise to a unique form of art that find in Tardonato a excellent demiurge. The artistic movement of Space Art relies, with an ancient and essential bond, science with art. We can find one of its happiest expressions in the works of that artist and astronomer Giorgio Tardonato.
Thanks to a genuine insight that makes to coexist the artist with the passionate man of science, we are accompanied by Tardonato, in an amazing journey to the discovery of the Cosmos. The universe is generated according to mysterious laws that Men from all Eras have tried to find out with hard study and understanding. Probably it’s not enough to use the rational mind to fully understand why such beauty and perfection that regulate Universe have rules too amazing to be expressed only into mathematical equations. The path marked by Tardonato following the suggestions of Space Art allowed him to build a consistent and culturally flawless career. Thanks to his mastery and spontaneity, he uses various pictorial techniques in order to be able to better shows the full bound with cosmic visions and knowledge related to the myth of creation. The spectator who admires his work is not alone in front of a beautiful work of art, but can also take advantage of a detailed astronomy lesson. His operas offers to us an astronomical vision, icastic and true, without abstractions, that come from a real experience with a good telescope.
His pursuit of perfection become a strong interpretive key for a works such as the First Big Radio Telescope, the Hubble Space Telescope, the core of the Antennae and latest creation, the international space station ISS. The origins of Mankind himself with its thirst for knowledge will are revoked by the shapes of our Planet Earth: the starting point from which it emerges the perfect amount of ISS, a real promise for Mankind to overcome their own horizons. His latest work is a big moon. Celestial body that represents the imaginary and the dreams of us human beings that we raise our gaze and dreams to the cosmos.