About the artist
Scots Italian artist from Edinburgh and Castelnuovo di Garfagnana.
First Class honours degree in Contemporary Art Practice (CAP), Gray's School of Art, RGU, Aberdeen
Attended the Academy of Fine Arts, Prague during an Erasmus semester, 2014.
Winning 'the Fred Bushe prize for sculpture' from the entire year group , 2015
Awarded a residency at the Scottish Sculpture workshop, 2016
Pietrasanta work experience residency scheme:
Lost wax process for metal in Fonderia Mariani specialising in bronze
The reductive process of stone work Studio Stagetti specialising in Marble
First solo Exhibition 'The Objectus is Objectus' 2017
Professional membership at the Edinburgh Sculpture workshop, 2017
Master of Letters degree (with merit) from Glasgow School of Art, 2018.
Private commemorative commission on permanent display at the Royal Scots Club, 2019.
Group exhibition at Air Gallery (Manchester) which was part of Manifest Art Festival, 2019.
Currently experimenting with 'Coral Stone' at Clifton Hall Great House (Barbados) 2020-2022
Exhibitions
Relay 2 Exhibition, 10-14 July 2019 @ Tramway, Glasgow
All Work and All Play , 27June -20 July 2019@Air Gallery, Manchester
Touch tour (stone) , 14-15 September 2018@ Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop
GSA Masters Degree Show, 1-12 September2018@ Trongate, Glasgow
Limp Structures, 1-4 May 2018 @Transmission Gallery
Langs Craigs Exhibition, 23-25 Feb 2018@Langs Craigs Dumbarton
The Objective is Objectus,10 September2017@Botanic Gardens
Undergraduate Degree Show, 20-27 June 2015@Gray's School of Art
CXXX, 12-14 February 2015@Peacocks Visual Arts Gallery, Aberdeen
Stillalife, 17-30 June 2014 @The Academy of Fine Arts,Prague
Interact, 18 September 2013 @Gray's School of Art
Prizes
Professional member of the Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop 2017
Kym Needle Prize for Sculpture @The Edinburgh Academy 2010
Fred Bushe Memorial Prize @Gray's School of Art 2014
Selected Emerging Artist @Gray's School of Art 2014
Kym Needle Prize for Sculpture @Gray's School of Art 2014
Residencies
Scottish graduate residency@Scottish Sculpture Workshop- October 2016
Pietrasanta residency @Fonderia Mariani, Pietrasanta, Jan-April 2017
Pietrasanta residency @ Studio Stagetti, Pietrasanta, Jan-April 2017
Hacking Europe @Brussels, Belgium, April 2018
Coral Stone Residency@ Clifton Hall Great house, Barbados, Jan-April 2020
Contact
Email: gianpiero@hotmail.co.uk
Address: Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop
21 Hawthornvale
EH6 4JT
Artist Statement
Art to me is a balance of unanswerable questions and pointless fun, from it's origins on the walls of a cave to what ever the fuck it is now, I make sculpture because it excites me ! Using different materials to tell the world what I think and feel, with my philosophies, ideas and dreams.
" You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation, ” Plato. “play” in the majority of adults is as extinct as the white rhinoceros. The value of “fun” is slowly leaving our society. I investigate interaction as a way of breaking this barrier of “this is an art work don't touch it” and make sculptures that make you feel something real. I encourage the viewers to interact, engage and respond physically to the work, and through their actions invoke others. Fellow Artist Ralph Roosen said " maybe that is the metaphor, we do all these pointless tasks in life but what’s the point,”
My current project started January 2020 and with the difficulty of being a sculptor in the pandemic I questioned why I make art at all. "Sculpture is in crisis" Sacha Craddock stated in a recent podcast "what is sculpture good for" but two years on the same project, surviving Covid 19, I believe sculpture has its place in the world today. I took this negative energy and put it into a new material otherwise unexplored in sculpture. I intend to show the Coral Stone pieces made during the pandemic in Barbados early 2022. I never gave up on these works and I'm excited to show them. The world will never be the same from this shit show but my questions are : what do we value? what do we add? what do we take away? I believe this in life, in sculpture and in cultural tradition.
GianPiero Franchi