L'Oriano's desire to sculpt began at the early age of eight upon seeing a sculptor give life to a dolphin from a rough piece of marble. Since then his dream was not to generate the dolphin, but to be that dolphin.

In 1988 he enrolled at the Accademia Di Belle Arte in Carrara where he graduated Magna Cum Laude. His first noteworthy sculpture "IIcaro 1" was exhibited in 1991 in Florence. Upon graduation he went to Florence to continue his sculpting and studies. Florence became his teacher.

In 1992 he received his first public commission for "Janine" in Germany, his first large piece of work, over seven feet high, out of a solid block of Carrara marble. An anatomically defined body breaking out of the block. This led him to another public commission for the Villa Luna Arts Center in Montova, Italy in 1996. "Icaro 2", a sculpture measuring twenty feet high.

In 1995 he went to Capetown, South Africa to study light and form.

In 1998 he began to experiment with color on marble and mixing marbles in his work which lead him to create "Icaro 3". This Icaro does not fall physically but is a covered figure where we are allowed to see only parts of his body and experience an interior falling within the fixed real. "Listening to Mercury" uses three different marbles; red of the "copri cappo" representing the universe, the white of the face representing purity and the black of the body representing everything that is physical.

Since 1999 living and working in both New York and Tuscany his works have continued to explore the two dimensional as well as three dimensional world works which seek to evoke the power of silence and continue to question the definition of soul, body and covering.

He is currently working on PEOPLE, a series of silent souls made in marble and wood and is in the process of casting his first "Soul" in aluminum with marble. His aim in the near future is to produce a grouping of Souls over 25 feet high.

PEOPLE SERIES

The new works included in this inaugural exhibition are a continuation of L'Oriano's sculptures and paintings which seek to evoke the power of silence and continue to question the definition of soul, body and covering.

This body of recent work is part of a series named People. The inspiration was born in 1998 in a forest in Germany where while walking alone through the forest in a ghostly silence he was accompanied by hundreds of 50 to 100 foot high figures. These Souls represented both in sculptures and paintings transcend their own physical representations and communicate knowledge beyond reason and fold meaning into image.

The sculptures are made of Linden wood and Carrara marble. The wood represents the covering, a material that moves, breaks and ages like skin. The marble a material that lives untainted through the years and centuries representing the essence of the soul.

The symbols and markings on the bodies are his communication with the pieces while working on them. The numbers come insistently and repetitively until they are written, the markings come as a sound, which breaka the silence. They offer a method of communication with the spiritual world but also represent a personal way to speak private thoughts.