Franco Accursio Gulino was born in Sciacca, Sicily
in 1949. After graduating from the local Art Institute, he completed
his apprenticeship in design and art restoration. An amateur musician,
color chemist, subtle reader of contemporary Italian writers such as
Pasolini and Sciascia, Gulino's early experiences covered a wide
variety of different aspects involved in the "making of art".
In 1970 he completed a course of industrial and architectural design
offered by the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Palermo.
Soon thereafter, however, he decided to move to northern Italy where he
enjoyed a sudden and remarkable success as a painter, in the bohemian
circles of Milan and Ferrara. Subsequently, in 1973, Gulino decided to
return to Sicily and devote his life and work to his homeland.
Since that time, Gulino has worked
throughout Sicily where he is acknowledged as an expert in such
traditional techniques as fresco and glass painting. He has been an
advisor in important art restoration projects in Sicily. Additionally
he has created paintings inspired by the masters of both "folk"
and "classical" art - works which have been exhibited
not only in Sciacca, but also in Gibellina, Catania, Taormina, Menfi,
Agrigento, Palermo, Cefalù, Trapani, Palermo, Messina, Siracusa,
Enna and Raffadali.
As if he had elected to embody the inconsistent
flow of time and history of his country, Gulino has played a
variety of traditional, one might even say anachronistic roles in
contemporary Sicilian artistic life: that of the court master, the gild
craftsman, as well as the art restorer, and the tutor . His role
as creative artist, however has been kept hidden in his secret
studio which he has divided into two separate rooms - a "thinking
room" and a "painting room". In his private studio
Gulino uses home-made oil color on a variety of materials - wood,
cloth, mirror, plastic, and metal. Many are old pieces of
furniture that call to him regardless of what they are.
Gulino paints characters from the neighborhood,
from the collective imagery, and the newspapers. Although his
personages are often masked and endowed with animal or mythological
characteristics, they are always grounded in an initial inspiration:
the writer Pirandello carries some grotesque Germanic tones, perhaps
reminders of his long Berlinese journey, but he is still Pirandello.
The art critic is a beast somewhere between a horse and a rabbit but
dressed in the spirit of a young, hip, self-conscious art critic. The
philosopher is something in between the textbook illustration of Greek
or German philosophers but sits candidly in front of a milk bowl placed
on a red and white checked plastic tablecloth (on which himself is
painted). Gulino’s women are sexy party dolls in short dresses
with cute hips and delicate postures. All of them wear a curious but
still attractive mask that makes their heads that of a goat, a mouse or
a dog. The few women with faces who reappear in paintings are The Woman
in Black and The Bacchus Ladies, to whom Gulino seems to entrust the
safety of all his other creatures.
Since the early 1980's, a few collectors from "il
continente", who had heard of him by word of mouth, have
started visiting Gulino 's studio periodically. One of these, the
photographer Lillo Cascio, put him in touch with the Rome-based
organization La Centrale dell'Arte that supported and arranged his
first exhibition in New York and then the exhibit In/Out for the
Cantieri Culturali alla Zisa in Palermo.
