Born in Palermo in 1970, Raffaele Piccoli studied at the “Abadir’ Academy of Fine Arts in Monreale, Sicily.  By cutting, recomposing, violently hitting or making very thin slabs, Raffaele Piccoli’s work challenges and experiments with the resistance of clay.  The final appearance of each piece is the result of a design process which takes place in the artist’s mind during the making; drawing inspiration from the material itself.  This is especially true of the panels, where the use of different-sized plates combined with ceramic glazes applied by brush, achieve a painterly yet tactile result.