With true joy, by being yesterday at the studio of the sculptor Eugenio Riotto, close to beautiful works in full relief, I saw hanging on a wall numerous reliefs, which I immediately recognized as fruits of the negative process. So there came to life in front of me new spontaneities of inspiration, of choices, of harmonies, which under the sign of that method assumed the refined quality, which the plasticity of clay wonderfully conveys. The retrieval then of elements of mechanics as aesthetic values substaining the work of art offered me a theme of meditation on the relationship reason/mistery, meditation which from time immemorial accompanies the man who puts himself towards the arts.
Camillo Bersani
So Eugenio Riotto comes back by proposing, sculpture by sculpture,
a unique and universal theme as the one of love, which he was able
to develop and investigate thoroughly in a decisive but at the same
time delicate way. What then remains impressed together with the
vitality of a material continuously carved – in order to evoke the
innate communicative sense that I already mentioned -- is the
intensity (I would even dare to define it “obstinacy”) with which he
could pursue a professionality gained step by step, and fully acquired
in conformity with an iter (course) during which he did not want to
allow himself distractions of any kind. The intimacy, the interiority,
the story of more figures have been decrypted also towards a
narrative function, leaving room to the thought of the viewer, who
today is able to completely understand that solid balance which is
the dimension of the artist himself.
Marina di Pietrasanta, July 14, 2003
Lodovico Gierut
Eugenio Riotto’s poetics, so essential and soaked with deep-rooted values, translates in soft and intense figures, rich in the meanings they want to transmit. Love for nature and man, by now too besieged by technology and overwhelmed bu a chasing modernity to whom they almost seem to escape, find again the meaning of real felleings and eternal passions in a stillness and in an intensity of gestures, with expressive strenght and swetness both in the statues of the cycle dedicated to love, dear to every being, and in the portraits, and in the bas-reliefs rich in strenghts, inventive and plastic pleasantness. Eugenio Riotto’s works draw the interest, induce to a sense of partecipation and share and to a desire of serenity and primitive freedom. They can be a precious company for our everyday life.
Maria Grazia Bianchi (woman-writer, poetess)