6 – 20 December 2007

Winner of the Boundary Figurative Art prize 2007

recent works

Siro was one of the joint winners in last year’s Boundary Figurative Art Prize.
Italian by birth, after a career in acting, he received his art education in England (Brighton.)
He is currently doing a MA at Byam Shaw School of Art.
It is easy to see the world summoned up by Siro’s paintings as a realm of dreams.
Most of the faces in his work appear at least moderately scary, like Halloween masks. But children do not find Halloween seriously scary. Siro’s angle of vision remains resolutely childlike. Not childish - he is evidently an artist of considerable sophistication and technical control. But as Dubuffet chose in his work to assume the vision of a (possibly noble) savage, so Siro looks at things, or invents them if you prefer, from the point of view of a (possibly innocent) child. Siro’s world poses questions, it does not provide answers. Therein lies its power to provoke and charm at the same time.

John Russell Taylor Art Critic, The Times