Giulio Candussio

Mosaic maker

Emanuele Zamponi ©Michelangelo Foundation

Painting with stones

He received the Maestro d'Arte e Mestiere (MAM) prize
One of his mosaics covers a piazza in Mestre
He worked on the Tower of Paradise in Hiroshima

“I have had the good fortune to find myself in a place where mosaic is practiced at its highest level, and I have had the opportunity to express myself fully in this field, creating many mosaics all around the world.” Giulio Candussio is a prolific mosaic artist whose long career has been marked by remarkable collaborations with world-renowned architects and designers. He was educated at the Scuola dei Mosaicisti del Friuli in Spilimbergo, one of the most important international institutions devoted to the training of professionals specialising in mosaic art, where he also taught for many years before being appointed artistic director. He dedicates his time to his first love of mosaic, as well as to sculpture, painting and drawing. His signature style emerges vividly and powerfully through all expressive mediums.

Interview

Emanuele Zamponi ©Michelangelo Foundation

Emanuele Zamponi ©Michelangelo Foundation

When did you realise that your future was in mosaics?: I can still remember the first time I rode my bicycle to Aquileia, a town rich in mosaics, which was very close to where my family had moved to when I was a boy. I had developed a precocious vocation for art, and my mother supported it despite our family’s scarcity of means.
What fascinates you about mosaics?: I am charmed by its surface, which is not as uniform as that of a painting, and is interrupted by the spaces between each tile. Since the surface is discontinuous, the light plays with each tessera, and colour is achieved by addition and subtraction. This formal chromatic simplification has always fascinated me.
Your career as a mosaic artist took off early, right?: I started working with a company that later became Bisazza, a world leader in mosaics. My first task was the realisation of a 600-square-metre mosaic for a museum in Kuala Lumpur. I love challenges, and I perform at my best when I am under pressure!
Are you passing on the baton to anyone?: To my daughter. I want to leave something behind me, and she has every intention to follow this path. She studied scenography at the Academy in Rome, which has given her a solid background. Moreover, she possesses manual dexterity, which is also important in this craft.

Giulio Candussio is a master artisan: he began his career in 1964 and he started teaching in 1994