By Mikayla van Loon
A portraiture artist from Lilydale was recently named a semi finalist in one of Australia’s largest and most prestigious art prizes.
Oil painter Claude Ciccone was recognised in the top 200 of the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize for his painting titled ‘The New Kid on the Block’.
The artwork depicts his daughter Mira who was seven months pregnant at the time and her two dogs in a dramatic portrait.
“I choose a subject that usually has a bit of drama and composition. It probably stems back from some of the great masters,” he said.
“On a stormy day, with dark clouds coming through, there’s a light horizon coming through, I love that drama.”
Having entered the art prize perhaps three or four times in the past and never making it to the semi finals, Mr Ciccone said he does believe the subject matter made all the difference.
“I think it is very important, I think subject matter is essential because all artists can paint and a good artist can paint well but it’s a matter of finding the right subject that will make a good painting.”
While not expecting to make it any further in the process, Mr Ciccone said it was rather exciting to be named a semi finalist.
“There’s thousands of entries from all over Australia from some of the best artists, so it was a huge surprise to get [that far],” he said.
Mr Ciccone’s love for painting began when he was 20 years old, where he began painting everyday because “I was so passionate”.
“For 20 years I would go out to the Yarra Valley and paint landscapes and come home with three, four, five, six paintings from a day trip.
“Painting has been a part of my life since I can remember and 40 years on I’m still painting every day.”
Drawn to oil paints initially as an artist, Mr Ciccone has remained using this medium, even though he has tried many others.
“I find it’s just a beautiful medium to discover. So you can make mistakes, you can wipe them off because the paint stays wet for quite a while. You can explore, discover, manipulate the paint as much as you want.
“You can glaze it, there’s so many variables with oil painting and the finish you get after all its trials and tribulations of experimenting with the paint and the oils and the mediums, there is the end result.
“You get to that point in a painting when it feels great, that lovely stage and you’re happy with it and you can stop painting.”
Having moved away from Lilydale for some time, Mr Ciccone returned to his childhood home where he now resides and has his full studio established, where he also runs oil painting workshops and has taken on some new skills outside of painting.
From the dramatic to the whimsical, Mr Ciccone has discovered a love for nautical sculpture using recycled materials to create ships of different kinds.
Seeing bits of timber on the side of the road or tin that would otherwise not have a purpose, Mr Ciccone said he can take what would be scrap and reimagine it in sculpture.
These are on display as part of the Lilydale and Yarra Valley Show where Mr Ciccone was asked to judge the many and varied art prizes for 2022.
“As a kid, I always used to come to the Lilydale Show, I never missed it and now I’m back in Lilydale, a full circle, I’m the judge instead of being judged.”
This will be the first time Mr Ciccone has judged an art prize before but was positive he’d know what to look for and said he was very impressed by some of the local talent who had submitted works into the Show.
“The amount of effort and the attention to detail. The composition is really important. And you can tell by a painting how much passion an artist has in what they do. So that stands out to me.”
