The Lion of Spain

BRUNO DI MAIO

ARTIST'S STATEMENT

Something about me:

I was born in North Africa to Italian parents who were among the first "farmers" of that land. I started to mess around with coloured pencils early on; it was my only fun in the sunny loneliness of that great farm. A long illness stuck me in bed where I developed a passion for reading and fables and the frantic need to represent my fantastic and fabulous "friends" with my coloured pencils. All of this, set ablaze perhaps by the implacable African sun, propelled me toward Art.

I attended the Art Institute in Perugia and Rome and worked in the antiquarian environment of the Capital, which was indeed the city of the myth at that time. Among Piazza di Spagna, via Margutta and via del Babuino, in the ideal quadrilateral of the art, I worked as a restorer beside the best teachers of the era, including Pico Cellini, my spiritual mentor. It was there that I started to know and deeply love the great paintings. I learned from gilders, carvers, cabinetmakers; never forgetting to see the world with the marvelling eyes of a child and to represent it with the skill of a good artisan. Since I have never found a satisfactory definition of "Art," rather than consider myself an "Artist," I prefer to call myself what I am in reality: a Painter.

Bruno Di Maio

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