Carmelo Candiano (XX) - Iris

After completing 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 at the Academy of Venice, he attends Alberto Viani's courses. Here, he stays eight years, working for the theatre with a group of friends. In 1980, having returned definitively to Sicily, to Scicli, he finds a notably lively cultural climate, thanks to the contribution of numerous artists who had given 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, stimulating artistic exchange.
In these years he begins to exhibit his first sculptures and drawings. In 1981 I participate in a group show in Palermo alongside Alvarez, Guccione, Polizzi, Sarnari, and in 1982 the first solo show at the Municipal Library of Scicli.
The eighties pass with many 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 by Sgarbi, I participate in the Suzara Prize.
After an important solo show at Galleria Basile in Palermo in 1991, in 1992 he experiences an important moment both in his personal life—meeting Enza, his future wife—and professionally: I realize an important solo show sponsored by the Municipality of Bologna at Villa Aldrovandi Mazzacorati; at the Galleria Il Narciso in Rome, drawings and sculptures are exhibited. This graphic work was printed using the technique “digital-calcography,” which starts with a first digital pass and then others in intaglio, to give a tactile sense to the piece.