ART FOCUS: PEETA

In my work, I endeavor to realize the sculptural quality of individual letters, namely the ones
that spell out my own moniker Peeta. I break them from their generic typographical form,
stylizing them with shape and volume beyond its mere semantic function. Thus my own lettering
is brought into the fluidity of the urban, where words are continuously ruptured from their own
histories, readapted into idiom and gestures learned off the street. The final result derived from
the fusion between traditional lettering and three dimensional style has given life
to a unique kind of visual rhythm, created by the intersecting lines between sections of conic,
cylindrical and twisting surfaces.
The role of sculpture comes to be essential for this purpose. It represents for me a direct contact
with three-dimensionality in order to understand the rules of light and shadows and to reproduce
them.


Despite the depth of research into technical and formal perfection, the materialness of
three-dimensional painting hides a deeply spiritual side. Shades of colour and perceptive
tricks are essentially the means to a progressive disclosure of my own personality. They
are an implicit intermediary of a precise message — of my will to understand myself
and subsequently to describe my ego. The choice to represent and reiterate my own
name is already an attempt to paint a self-portrait. My works are aimed at revealing the
deceptiveness of human perception, the fallacy of narrow and fixed points of view through
visual tricks which, proceeding from the attempt to confer a three-dimensional semblance
on a pictorial representation, ultimately reveal their will to deceive.

Peeta, also known as Manuel Di Rita, is a graffiti artist since 1993
currently living in Venice. He is a member of the EAD crew (Padova,
Italy), FX and RWK crews (New York City) and has participated in
graffiti jams and Meeting of Styles events in Europe and the Americas.
His work explores the potential of sculptural lettering, both in
painting and in sculpture.