Monday 20 April 2015

Essay Art- Artist Dominique Ciancio

Dominique Ciancio was born in 1983 Sliema, Malta. He started drawing and painting in his early teens when he was 12/13 years old. He studied History of Art  and Philosophy at the University of Malta. In 2004 he got a degree. He also has a four year Diploma in fine Arts from the School of Art.

 He worked on back drops for film companies such as Universal Pictures and productions with film director Steven Spielberg filming in Malta. When he was the age of 22 he travelled to Northern Europe mainly Scandinavia. For a few years he studied and painted full time while living in Oslo, Norway . In 2010 he decided to move to Gozo. Specializing in oil painting he took commissions and exhibitions. 

Ciancio admires a variety of artists, film directors and paintings of the old masters. His favourite subject to paint is people . when he paints portraits he trains himself .He depicts life models during a 2 hour sitting. Then he uses his imagination and always using a mirror for guidance.

I asked Ciancio if he was inspired by local scenery but he prefers more universal themes and is inspired by films. He also experiments with sound which he had experimented with other artists in England. He creates projects combining picture and sound.

In his paintings he tries to create a story using his own life experience. He mostly uses oils and  buys and mixes his own quality pigments with oil. He prepares his own canvas. He also uses Jute as the base for his paintings.  He likes to create certain vibrant colours with glazes and  he scratches the paint using tools to create texture and expression.  Most of his paintings are finished with varnish.

He has exhibited abroad and locally. Some local exhbitions include,The Curious 2010, Silent Pulses  2011, The Mirror Works  2012,  Unpack  2014,  Semartilma - Dissolving Borders 2014/15 and his current exhibition Ditto- Approaching portraiture  2015.

In his latest exhibition Ditto he focuses on portraiture.His studies, texture and the final output. He used mixed media not just oils. He used, pastels,pen and ink,watercolour and acrylic. 

I chose Dominique Ciancio because he has original works.


Self -Portrait



Travelling Glows, oils on canvas
Private Collection

This painting is one of his works. It depicts three girls, two old men and an old woman travelling on a ship  Maybe they are hoping to find a better place for them. As you can see a teenager is holding a lamp. It shows a glow on their faces The background shows the sun, clouds, sky and the sea. The setting  sky is dramatic and the sea shows different types blues from light to dark.


Age

In this painting a curious baby is crawling looking at a screen painting of an old man feeling sad and his eyesight are looking down, on the right hand side is a teenager looking a the old man. when I look at it I see the baby looking at the screen like that what I am going to look like or else he is looking at his father and his grandfather. It depicts light on the baby and on the screen the texture of the painting is different with colours of golden yellow and brown and greyish colours.

The Balancer

The Balancer depicts a man balancing on the wire holding a stick in his hands. He seems to be balancing above roof tops  with  the city below in the distance. The sky is a night scene full of darkness with hues of blacks and blues. 

These images are the exhibition called ditto of 11th till 29th April 2015 in Gozo, Victoria.

Sandra & Romina
Oil on canvas
This painting is a private collection. Two ladies are posing and sitting down. On the left we can see she is sitting on a chair and the other one on the chest. blue and red curtains form a background. The light is coming from above.

Studies on prepared linen
Mixed media on linen


This painting depicts two teenage girls.This is a sketch on linen. There is a lot of texture in this painting.


Harvard reference

 Dominique Ciancio. 2000. Dominique Ciancio paintings. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.ciancioart.com/index.html. [Accessed 17 April 15].

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