Carmelo Candiano (XX) - Iris

After finishing high school, he attends a sculpture course at the Institute of Art in Syracuse. In 1972 he moves to Florence, where he enrolls at the Academy of Fine Arts. In 1973 he goes to the Academy of Venice, where he attends Alberto Viani’s courses. Here, he stays eight years, working for the theater with a group of friends. In 1980, having returned permanently to Sicily, in Scicli, he finds a cultural climate that is particularly lively, thanks to the contribution of numerous artists who helped give life to the Movimento Vitaliano Brancati and to “Il Giornale di Scicli.” He befriends Piero Guccione, Sonia Alvarez, Franco Sarnari, all painters with whom he establishes a dialogue and a rich and stimulating artistic exchange.
In these years he begins to exhibit his first sculptures and drawings. In 1981 I participate in a collective exhibition in Palermo together with Alvarez, Guccione, Polizzi, Sarnari, and in 1982 comes the first solo show at the Biblioteca Comunale di Scicli.
The Eighties follow, rich in exhibitions in Ragusa, Rome, Donnalucata. In 1987 I am invited by Vittorio Sgarbi to the exhibition “La Natura Morta nell’Arte Italiana del Novecento” at the Castello Estense in Mesola (Ferrara) and, in 1990, again on Sgarbi’s invitation, I take part in the Suzara Prize.
After an important solo show at the Galleria Basile in Palermo in 1991, in 1992 I experience an important moment both in my personal life – I meet Enza, my future wife – and professionally: I carry out an important solo show with the sponsorship of the Comune di Bologna at Villa Aldrovandi Mazzacorati; at the Galleria Il Narciso in Rome, instead, the drawings and sculptures are exhibited. This graphic work is printed using the digital-etching technique, with which I begin with a first digital pass and then proceed with further etchings, to give a tactile sense to the piece."