"Manhattan"

CLAUDIO CIONINI

Claudio Cionini was born in Grosseto in 1978. He attended the Liceo Artistico di Grosseto and the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence, where he began exhibiting in 2000. The teachings of Prof. Daniele Govi and Prof. Adriano Bimbi were significant for his training. After his studies he immediately turned his attention to the industrial landscape, a reality that surrounds him in the city where he has always lived, Piombino. He is attracted by the plants of the steelworks: the strong chiaroscuro and smoky atmospheres that envelop blast furnaces and pipes. From 2001 to 2007 he executed many drawings, even from life, and slowly approached a mainly monochrome painting. In 2007 he participated in the Michetti Prize with two paintings depicting the industrial port of Piombino. Later, in November of the same year, he exhibited these works at the group exhibition "New painters of reality" at the P.A.C. in Milan. In the same year the first studies of urban landscape were born after visiting Paris. Fascinated by its large boulevards and endless views of the city, he intuits the fundamental characteristic of his work: the space, the depth of perspective, the vanishing point. The first important solo exhibition was held in 2008, entitled "Places of Absence", at the Archaeological Museum of Fiesole. In 2009, on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, he participated in several celebrations in memory of the event. At the invitation of the Region of Tuscany and after several stays in Berlin, he created a nucleus of works that will be part of the solo exhibition "The Shadow of the Wall" held in the rooms of the Regional Council of Tuscany at Palazzo Panciatichi in Florence. He also exhibited at the group show "Il Muro - Vent'anni dopo quasi come Dumas" at Castello di Lari and "I Muri dopo Berlino" at Spazio Tadini in Milan. He continues, even afterwards, to portray the city of Berlin, stimulating from an architectural and cultural point of view. Cionini's painting becomes more material, inserting new shades and new shots. Thus was born, in 2010, the solo exhibition "Scorci di verità" at the Galleria d'Arte Contemporanea in Arezzo. In 2011 at the Piaggio Museum in Pontedera he exhibited a series of works dedicated to the steelworks of Piombino, a theme dear to him that he has never abandoned over the years, and a series of paintings depicting the great world metropolises, especially American ones, from New York to Los Angeles, and others, from Melbourne to Tokyo. The painter is fascinated by the idea of approaching these great cities almost as if they were one boundless global metropolis. In order to create his works, he uses images from the web and cinema: "global" communication tools par excellence. The exhibition is entitled "RUST! Factory-City-Memory". In 2013 the exhibition at the Galleria Angelica in Rome "ISTANTI - Under the Skin of Images", for which he created some paintings dedicated to the eternal city; one of these, which depicts Piazza del Popolo, was donated to the Senate of the Italian Republic. In 2014 he exhibits in October in Sicily, in the Palermo gallery Lupo 'Art, with an important solo show and in November at the Fornace Pasquinucci in Capraia Fiorentina. The solo show is entitled "Blues of the big city". a deliberate homage to Cesare Pavese's collection of poems. In the spring of 2015 he exhibited in Pietrasanta, in the halls of Palazzo Panichi, "Beyond the deserts: the visible cities" is the title of the solo exhibition that recalls the work of Italo Calvino. In the summer of 2015 he participated in the creation of the book "Cibo Arte Vino Mare" edited by Elena Barsacchi, with recipes by chef Luciano Zazzeri, portraits by Oliviero Toscani, including that of Cionini and a text by Vittorio Sgarbi. The Lupo 'Art gallery dedicates two solo shows to him in 2016, first in Pietrasanta, in July and in Palermo, in October; a catalogue with the works present in the gallery is realized. Cionini has been selected for the 2017 calendar of Toscana Energia. In September 2018 he began to collaborate with the Piero Della Francesca Art Gallery, one of the oldest galleries in Italy and a point of reference for lovers of figurative art. He lives and work in Piombino (Livorno).