Antonio Portale - Biography

Antonio Portale born in Randazzo (CT) in 1956, is a professor of sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Catania, the city where he lives and he works.
Student as a teenager, and later collaborator, of the sculptor Domenico Tudisco exponent of the Catania School of Sculpture, he completed his training at the Academy of Catania with the sculptors Eugenio Russo and Rosario Frazzetto.
The experience in an artistic foundry in Cologne (Germany) coincides with the beginning of his artistic career in which the values ​​of the aesthetic and poetic composition combined with the values ​​of the technique are combined with a figural research permeated by strong plasticity and composition articulated between planes and volumetric forms. His poetic interpret the reality in which contemporary man lives, with metaphors that flow into classicism and myth.
In his work he prefers the classical materials of sculpture, stone, marble and bronze.
He has been present, by invitation, since 1978 in numerous collective exhibitions.
Since 1985 he has organized several personal exhibitions. Participation in International Sculpture Symposiums is frequent, in which he creates works of considerable size in stone and marble.
Since 1997 he has curated the edition of several International Sculpture Symposiums.
Since 2014 he has been in charge of the project and has the direction of the International Lava Stone Sculpture Symposiums for the creation of "The city of 100 sculptures" in Belpasso (CT).
In 2016 he took care of the project for the construction of the monumental group "Memory and Freedom" in Piedimonte Etneo (CT).
In 2017 he supervised the realization of the lava stone installation of "The dream of Empedocles" - work by Emilio Isgrò at Radicepura Garden - Giarre (CT), in the same year he participated in
"Imago Mundi - Mediterranean Routes" (Luciano Benetton Collection) - Cantieri Culturali alla Zisa - Palermo.
In 2018 he inaugurates a solo exhibition of Sculptures and Drawings in the "Flying Clouds" Gallery, Castelfalfi, Florence.
In 2019 he created, in lava basalt, a large monumental sculpture "Etna" for the 350th anniversary of the eruption that destroyed Malpasso, Belpasso (CT).
In 2020 he took part in the "Novecento" exhibition curated by Vittorio Sgarbi at the Convitto delle Arti, Noto (SR).
He held summer courses in stone sculpture and a project-work in lava stone.
He designed and built bronze doors, stone portals and marble furnishings for churches.
His works are found in numerous private, public and museum collections.