Commercial value: 3000€

There is a red thread that connects Franco Accursio Gulino to the island of Ferdinandea: the artist from Sciacca has always considered the small island—born suddenly and disappeared in exactly the same way, in the sea 16 miles from Sciacca—as a "thinking," extreme land. A true symbol of freedom. Since that distant year of 1831, when the strip of land appeared off the coast of Sicily and immediately caught the attention of the powerful (and then sank lightly, mocking anyone who had ever thought of owning it), writers, fishermen, and artists have fallen in love with Ferdinandea. It was from here that Gulino began his research, which has now lasted forty-five years.

The works of Franco Accursio Gulino are showcased in national and international exhibitions and are featured in numerous public and private collections.

Franco Accursio Gulino is an eclectic artist: painter, poet, filmmaker. Driven by a genuine "necessity" and fueled by an energy that compels him to paint feverishly, day and night, in his home-studio in Sciacca, where hundreds of works are stacked—painted on canvases, boards, old doors, windows, cardboard, and advertising posters—in an overwhelming need for expression. Every surface becomes a book on which to write a formal chapter, reconnecting a fragment of an ongoing discourse. Gulino loves to proceed in chapters, revisiting completed works and reinterpreting them, giving them a chance to be reborn.

Franco Accursio Gulino [Sciacca, 1949] studied in Palermo, earned his teaching certification, and lived and worked between Milan and Ferrara before deciding to return to Sicily. Today, he divides his time between Sciacca and Rome. His series of works dedicated to the island of Ferdinandea gained international recognition, earning a feature in the Herald Tribune in March 2000. In 1997, he held a solo exhibition in New York, Design and the Embalmer, presented by Gioacchino Lanza Tomasi at the Italian Cultural Institute. The following year, he exhibited at the Art Gallery at Brooklyn College and the Allen Priebe Gallery in Wisconsin.

In 1999, he held the solo show In/Out at the Cantieri Culturali della Zisa in Palermo, and in 2003, he exhibited In medio stat virtus at the Orestiadi Foundation in Gibellina, followed by Tabularium at the Piccolo Teatro di Milano for the "Concert for 10 Voices for Europe," celebrating the entry of new countries into the European Union. In 2011, he inaugurated Camminanti in Nairobi, Kenya, a project reflecting the stories of migrants, refugees, and travelers in transformation, a subject to which Gulino has devoted his art for over two decades.

Since the early 1990s, Gulino has worked on a major cycle of over 150 works dedicated to Pier Paolo Pasolini, resulting in numerous exhibitions and stage designs for P.P.P. Siamo tutti in pericolo, directed by Daniele Salvo (staged in Turin, Milan, Rome). In 2014, his solo show Clandestini. Passano all’asta i sogni, curated by Laura Anello, was held in the prisons of Steri in Palermo. In 2015, Memorie. Ritratto d’artista, curated by Paola Nicita, was presented at Palazzo Ziino in Palermo. In 2017, he participated in Imago Mundi. Rotte Mediterranee as part of the Biennale Arcipelago Mediterraneo in Palermo.

Since 2019, Gulino has exhibited in St. Moritz, Monte Carlo, Gibellina, and the Saatchi Gallery in London for the StART Art Fair London. In 2021, his work Passano all'asta i sogni was included in the collection of the President of the Republic at the Quirinale. That same year, he reopened the Spasimo of Sciacca with Domus, curated by Laura Anello and Anthony Francesco Bentivegna, as part of the Le Vie dei Tesori festival. In March 2022, he returned to the Spasimo for the FerdinanDea Festival and his solo exhibition Ferdinandea. Lo studio del pensiero. Documentaries and art videos have been made about Gulino, and his works are part of public and private collections, both nationally and internationally.

Technical features:

• Dimensions: 43x30 cm