In Italy it seems connections come at the least expected times. This is how I met Carmine Di Pietro. He and his lovely wife were visiting our town and were out walking. They saw my husband's workshop and stopped to see my husband’s renovation projects. Luckily Carmine and his wife speak better English than my husband speaks Italian so they were able to enjoy time talking about creativity and projects. After they spoke for a while I arrived and Carmine showed me his abstract paintings and sculptures. Immediately I knew I wanted to join us at Artful Italia. Not only is his art stunning but he has a kindness about him and I knew he would be a perfect fit. I think Carmine can't help but share his gentleness, his passion for art and his enthusiasm for life.
For a few months now we have been working together and each time I see his work I find new reasons to love it. I can only imagine being lucky enough to have one of his abstract paintings on a wall in my home, or one of his sculptures sitting on a shelf or table for me to look at every day. Each glance is a new discovery, a new emotion and a new appreciation for the man who stunningly expresses so much without words.
As part of our ongoing series where we introduce you to our artisans I want to introduce you to Carmine, in his own words. He is not shy about what moves him, about his inner thoughts and his passions for his culture, country and family. I know you will enjoy learning as much about him as we have.
Carmine Di Pietro was born in Avezzano in the province of L'Aquila in February 1968, and made his debut in the world of art by devoting himself for many years with a passion for drawing, later he moved from drawing to acrylic painting, his fascination for painting awakened in him an enthusiasm and creativity that helped his art to become more conscious and mature.
He then applied himself with energy and extreme meticulousness to the study of new painting practices, arriving at the perfection of the mixed media technique in which enjoyed the simultaneous use of collage, acrylic, enamel and stucco. It is precisely thanks to collage, with resins and glue subsequently baked in a kiln, that the artist is able to give his works that typical glossy effect that combines aesthetic value with functional value, preventing the deterioration of the paper support and thus serving as unlimited protection for the work.
Every artist's use of his or her creative flair can (almost) always be traced back to the need to build bridges, to open gaps, and to weave connections between the self and others for the purpose of sensitizing one's inner world beyond the sayable, beyond the audible, beyond the thinkable, beyond the explicitly comprehensible. Carmine’s artwork is all an expression of his deepest thoughts, his inner reflections, his views on the struggles and beauty of our world and his personal conflicts. He uses strong brushstrokes, mixed media and colors to represent all of these thoughts and emotions.
His work is full of technical and manic gestures with which he expresses, in a hidden way, the reality that envelopes, contains and entangles him. This makes his work take the form of symbols of his restless spirit which uses the abstract to express, in a tangible way, the issues he wrestles with as a man, father, son, husband, worker, voter and citizen not only of Italy but also of the world. There is strong symbolism of his critiques and observations of the contrasts between globalization and our search for roots, violence and aspirations for peace, depersonalization and hunger for identity, unbridled consumerism and virtuous practices of the principles of sustainability.
If his works could tell their stories they would tell you about their origins in abandoned newspapers and magazines, of landfills and dumpsters rummaged through, of industrial scraps and processing residues where Carmine patiently rescued materials to reuse and create art, or to give them new life as raw materials. His creativity gives form to the formless, utility to the useless, sensibility to the nonsense of the world everyday that condemns man, and the innocent earth. Yet as much as socially and morally motivated themes support his artistic poetics, there is never presumption, arrogance, or snobbiness. Nor will you ever find pessimism, dejection, anxiety or surrender. After all, the acrylic used in his paintings, together with the luster of the còlle and resins, seem to suggest precisely the possibility that (in the end) light will triumph over darkness and reason over stolidity.
Too often we forget that we are guests in this world and, above all, we are passing through. We quickly move our steps on a soap bubble, suspended in infinity. We act, we think, we experience emotions and feelings, treading each day on something unique, of uncertain duration, just as uncertain is the answer to the eternal dilemma that keeps us poised between the laws of physics and a supernatural will, where thought rests -- and rests -- to explain the inexplicable. We are part of a fragile, complex and connected ecosystem, but without realizing it, at the speed of a blink of an eye, we have been able to alter its delicate balance, thus finding ourselves adrift, like the castaways on the Medusa's raft.
I believe that the continuity of humankind is entrusted to its ability to complete and enter, not as a master but as an integral part, into the infinite connection that binds Earth, Nature and the Universe, a neutral and balanced field, in which artificial intelligence can and must find a place if it operates in the service of mankind, as an implement, where his strength is not sufficient and as a compass, tracing for him the path to a better future, a future that will have recovered for Humanity what good and pure it has lost over time.
Carmine Di Pietro's art is a continuous experimentation that goes beyond the boundaries of the canvas to express itself also in the form of sculptures, installations, ceramics, Digital Art, Mail Art, Box Art, artist's books and drawing.
Carmine Di Pietro is an artist who has been able to translate all of his complex humanity, echoing with strong emotions and conflicting feelings, genuine truthfulness, love of tradition and innovative flair, positive curiosity, precision and passion. He is a man who over time discovered himself in love with Art and merged with it, letting it speak for him.
Carmine Di Pietro has shown and sold his work all over the world. He has been awarded multiple honors for his work. Below is a list of some of his exhibitions and honors from 2011-2024:
- Framing Landscapes - Civita D'Antino (AQ)
- First Impact - Botticelli Palace of Collelongo (AQ) - Personal
- G. D'Annunzio Award - Michetti Museum Chieti (CH)
- The Night of the Chimera - Avezzano (AQ)
- Bastions and Bastions - Celano (AQ)
- Fragments - Orsini Colonna Castle of Avezzano (AQ) - Personal
- Revelations - Palazzo delle Stelline and Casa Abruzzo (MI)
- Roots - Orsini Colonna Castle of Avezzano (AQ)
- Framing Landscapes - Civita D'Antino (AQ) - Solo exhibition
- Collecting in Time with the Masters of the 20th Century - 50th Premio Vasto (CH) - Ghosts of Light - 70th Anniversary Premio Michetti (CH)
- Recycling - Aurum - Pescara
- We are here and we are doing - Studio Uno Gallery - Avezzano (AQ)
- My Earth - Aia dei Musei di Avezzano (AQ) - Solo exhibition
- Wounds of life - installation art event La Corda
Music Park Rome
- Landscapes beyond the Landscape - Vasto (CH)
- Homage to Bruno Canova - Museum of Small Roman Cisterns Fermo - Revelations - Europe Pavilion Palazzo Albrizzi Venice
- Europe of the Arts Excellence Award
- Sulmona Prize
- Sulmona Prize - Mention of merit to the artist
- Sulmona Prize
- Mediterraneum Aragonese Castle - Taranto
- Collective 54 author parcels - Monza (MI)
- mis4tel2022 - Aula Magna University of L'Aquila - Personal - Human Rights (Aiapi) Rovereto (TR)
- Sulmona Prize
- Cahier - Studio Uno Gallery Avezzano (AQ) - Personal
- Stanze delle Meraviglie 7th edition - Villa Giulia Verbania (VCO)
- Framing Landscapes - Civita D'Antino (AQ) - Solo exhibition
ACCDA Prize awarded to the artist
- Oniric Visions - MA-EC Gallery - Milan
- Fucinoland - multimedia group exhibition - Avezzano (AQ)
- Participation in graphic competitions and conferences
- Included in the Atlas Dell'Arte De Agostini
- Book-Catalogue - volume no. 4 in the series "Artè" - Sette Ponti Edition (Fi)
- On projection presented his works in New York, Barcelona, Paris, Rome, Abu Dhabi, Dubai.
You can find Carmine's art and sculpture on our website.
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