Carmine Ciocca - contemporary painter

"The eyes are the mirror of the soul."

This belief is the foundation of my artistic research. Every gaze is a unique territory, filled with desires, fears, dreams, inner tensions, and often unspoken emotions. This is where I focus my work: at the point where the image ceases to be surface and becomes presence.

My path is self-taught, far from a traditional academic education. This condition, rather than representing a limitation, has guided my practice toward free and personal experimentation, grounded in observation, the discipline of the mark, and a direct relationship with the making. My focus is not so much on painting in the canonical sense, but on the very process of constructing the image and the human capacity to create, transform, and imbue it with meaning.

At the center of my work is the human face, understood as a space for emotional and psychological investigation. Expressions, and especially the gaze, become the locus where identity, memory, and narrative tension are condensed. This interest is complemented by an interest in optical illusions and image decomposition: each of my works arises from the interweaving of linear signs—parallel, perpendicular, or modulated—which, varying in thickness, density, and rhythm, gradually reconstruct the figure.

From this synthesis, a personal technique takes shape, ideally in dialogue with Pop Art and certain contemporary street art experiences, yet developing independently. I have defined this language as "BarCode Art," not as an aesthetic label, but as a reference to a visual method that transforms serial signs into images, and images into perceptual structures. Over time, I have also recognized affinities with digital practices and the use of photographic filters, while always maintaining a manual and material approach.

Over the years, I have created works initially dedicated to religious subjects—saints and biblical figures—and then expanded my research to include icons of music and cinema, exploring the boundaries between the sacred, myth, and popular culture.

After a long period of working in monochrome, my research is now evolving: I'm introducing color and varying the basic texture, gradually transforming lines into curves or other shapes suggested by the creative process. A natural evolution, which doesn't deny the past but expands it, keeping intact the core of my practice: the mark, the gaze, time.