Valerio Ciccone


Valerio Ciccone is an Australian artist who is best known for his drawings of mass-media events and icons taken from popular culture. He has worked from his Northcote-based studio at since 1984, where he has also had numerous solo shows. He has exhibited widely, both nationally and internationally and his work is held in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, MADMusée, Liège, and the National Sports Museum.

Early life and education

Ciccone grew up in the semi-rural suburb of Yarrambat, the third of four children. According to his mother, he began “drawing obsessively” from the age of four or five, and even at this young age his key source of imagery was taken from the mass media. It was during his childhood that he began creating his collection of rendered logos from favourite television shows, a collection he has continued to expand throughout his life, alongside others, including a collection of music cassettes which extends to over 1000 objects. Ciccone has demonstrated an extraordinary memory for these collections and an ability to recall the names of individual persons met briefly, over periods stretching many years. This ability has been noted as a key component of his artwork, informing the connections he draws between figures of public life and popular culture, and the attention to detail in his technical execution.
In 1984 Ciccone was one of the first artists to take up a studio residency at Arts Project Australia, an organisation devoted to supporting and promoting artists with an intellectual disability. Although he has received little formal training, his participation in the studio program at APA provided him with access to fine art materials and the informal tuition provided by the practicing artists employed by the organisation. He also spent a number of years attending weekly drawing classes at the School of Art at RMIT University. Ciccone’s early works were in watercolour and in the early 1990s he produced a series of monochrome drawings featuring imagery and text taken directly from newspapers. Following a serious illness in 1993 and a lengthy period of rehabilitation, his work underwent a significant change as he introduced colour to his palette. During this time he produced artworks centred on the actions and heroics of Australian Rules Football players, one of which has been acquired for the permanent collection of the National Sports Museum.

Career, themes and style

Glenn Barkley, Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, has described Ciccone’s “obsessive engagement” with television and mass media presentations of sporting events as being a quintessential trait of his generation, stating that for “Generation X,” there is “little difference between what we might watch and how we might feel.” He notes the manner in which Ciccone democratises his subjects, describing an oeuvre of works in which “cathedrals are as important as the corner of a studio and lions lie with mice, and elephants, and koala bears.” However, Barkley is careful to point out that Ciccone’s works are not flippant; he attributes his use of low-brow televisual imagery to a project which elevates and finds meaning in banal aspects of contemporary life, claiming that he “celebrates the mundane, the disposable and finds it beautiful.” Stylistically, Ciccone’s rendering of mass media personages and events in soft, layered pastel, work towards this elevation of his subject, transforming the “flatness of newsprint or flickering image on the screen” into something “warm and personal.”
Although best known for his works in pastel on paper, Ciccone has worked in a range of mediums including painting, printmaking, ceramics and digital animation. His work has been categorised within the genre of Outsider Art and has been included in Outsider Art exhibitions and fairs, both in Australia and in the USA. However, in recent years his work has also achieved success in more conventional art institutions and has been acquired for major permanent collections at the National Gallery of Australia and MADMusée, Liège, Belgium.

Solo exhibitions

Valerio Ciccone, Arts Project Australia Gallery, Melbourne, 2014
Valerio Ciccone: Peripheral Observer, Arts Project Australia Gallery, Melbourne, 2012
Ball! Arts Project Australia Gallery, Melbourne, 1999
Works by Valerio Ciccone, Pinacotheca, Melbourne, 1996
Works on Paper by Valerio Ciccone, Pinacotheca, 1994.

Selected group exhibitions

red ball: the fine art of footy, Red Gallery, Fitzroy North, Melbourne, 2016
The 64th Blake Prize, Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, Casula, NSW, 2016
After…, Arts Project Australia Gallery, Melbourne, 2015
Melbourne Art Fair, Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne, 1994 – 2014
Renegades: Outsider Art, national travelling exhibition, 2013 – 2014
Into the Vault and Out of the Box, Arts Project Australia Gallery, Melbourne, 2014
Video Doctor, Arts Project Australia Gallery, Melbourne, 2013
Classic Albums, Tank Art Centre, Cairns, QLD, 2013,
Classic Albums, Arts Project Australia Gallery, Melbourne, 2012
Fresh off the press, Arts Project Australia Gallery, Melbourne, 2011
This Sensual World, Arts Project Australia Gallery, Melbourne, 2011
Fred, Ginger and Other Stories, Delmar Gallery, Ashfield, 2011
Portrait Exchange, Arts Project Australia Gallery, Melbourne, 2010
Pictures of You, Arts Project Australia Gallery, Melbourne, 2009
BloodLines: Art and the Horse, national travelling exhibition, 2007 – 2009
Pearls of Arts Project Australia: The Stuart Purves Collection, national travelling exhibition, 2007 – 2009
Portraits of Artists, Place Gallery, Richmond, Melbourne, 2008
Behind the Scenes, Arts Project Australia Gallery, Melbourne, 2008
The Dinner Party, Arts Project Australia Gallery, Melbourne, 2007
Yours, Mine and Ours: 50 Years of ABC TV, Penrith Regional Gallery & The Lewers Bequest, Penrith, 2006
Leo Cussen with Selected Artists, Australian Galleries, Collingwood, 2005
10th Sydney Art on Paper Fair, Byron Kennedy Hall, Moore Park, Sydney, 2005
Amour, gloire et beauté, MADMusée, Liège, Belgium, 2005
Artists’ Books, Arts Project Australia Gallery, Melbourne, 2005
Figures humaines, Galerie du MAD, Liège, Belgium, 2004
2nd Annual Intuit Show of Folk and Outsider Art, Chicago, United States, Hosted by the Phyllis Kind Gallery, New York, 2004
Printed Matter, Arts Project Australia, Melbourne, 2004
Fair Game, The Ian Potter Centre; NGV Australia Response Gallery
A Sense of Place, Arts Project Australia Gallery, Melbourne, 2003
Articulations, Australian Print Workshop, Melbourne, 2000
Arterial, Paralympic Arts Festival, Studio Foyer, Sydney Opera House, Sydney, 2000
On Track, Arts Project Australia Gallery, Melbourne, 2000
Works on Paper, Australian Galleries, Sydney, 1999
Connexions Particulières, MADmusée and Musée d’Art Comtemporain, Liège, Belgium, 1999
The Inner View, Arts Project Australia Gallery, Melbourne, 1999
Ball! Another view of football, Arts Project Australia Gallery, Melbourne, 1998
Nexus, Project Space, RMIT, Melbourne, 1997
The Footy Show, Artists Garden, Fitzroy, Melbourne, 1997
Eyes on the Ball: Images of Australian Rules Football, Waverley City Gallery, 1996
Wild Things, Arts Project Australia Gallery, Melbourne, 1996
The 50th Anniversary Exhibition, The Australian National Maritime Museum, Darling Harbour, Sydney, 1995
Reversed Image, Arts Project Australia Gallery, Melbourne, 1995
Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award, Grafton Regional Gallery, Grafton, 1994
Beyond Words, VicHealth Access Gallery, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1994
Inside Out/Outside In, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1992
Figeac Festival, France, 1991
ILSMH Exposition Internationale, Paris, 1990
“Roar 2” Studios, Fitzroy, Melbourne, 1989

Publications

Valerio Ciccone: Peripheral Observer, exhibition catalogue, Arts Project Australia, Melbourne, 2011.

Collections

Australian Gallery of Sport Permanent Collection
MADmusée, Permanent Collection, Liège, Belgium
National Gallery of Australia, Print archive