Biography
Ray Piscopo’s introduction to the world of art can be traced back to the early 1970’s when as a student at secondary school he was tutored by Antoine Camilleri (1922-2005) considered one of our leading artists and a keen favourite with art lovers. Ray still cherishes the memory of those initial impulses.
Ray Piscopo has attended life classes for a three-year period under the supervision of Anton Calleja (b. 1955), a well-known artist in his own right who regards the human figure as an essential tool in academic training. He also attended at Luciana Notturni’s workshop on mosaics in Ravenna, Italy. For three years Ray Piscopo also attended classes at the Mosta Institute of Arts and Design in Ceramics under the tutorship of George Muscat. And in 2008 the artist won 2nd prize in an art competition: 3°Premio Piero Della Francesca in Arezzo, Italy.
In 2009 Ray Piscopo attended a 3 weeks art master class in Salzburg with Hubert Scheibl, a foremost artist in Germany/ Austria. He used a style much similar to artist Gerhard Richter that employs scraping over layers and layers of paint.
In 2010 Ray attended another 3 week master class session at the SommerAkademie Venedig, with the renowned Senegalese artist Amadou Sow. Amadou is known for his micropainting and for designing Taittingers champagne bottle labels. During these two workshops Ray Piscopo managed to paint about 11 paintings at each workshop.
In varied phases in his career as artist Ray tried various media starting with oils, then passing on to watercolour that he considers fascinating and actually using acrylics which he finds quite suitable in working with the brush as rapidly as possible.
Since Ray is an engineer by profession it is perhaps strange that he shows such great interest in art in general and that he practices as an artist. But his work is proof enough that art and science as much as science and religion are not only related but somehow auxiliary.
