Artist Database

Well-known for his bold, innovative public art pieces and large-scale sculptural works, Marco Cianfanelli graduated with a degree in Fine Arts from the University of the Witwatersrand in 1992. His most iconic work is Release, a monumental fragmented portrait of Nelson Mandela that was erected in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands on the 50^th anniversary of Mandela’s arrest there in 1962. Cianfanelli’s work can be found in public and private collections in South Africa and internationally, and he has won numerous awards, including the ABSA L’Atelier Art Competition and the Ampersand Foundation Fellowship. He has had seven solo exhibitions, including Record, at Art Space, in the Newtown Cultural Precinct in Johannesburg in 1996, Projected Development: Return to Begin, at the Aardklop Festival Artist in Potchefstroom in 2006, and most recently Data: Process at the University of Johannesburg Art Gallery in 2012. He was a member of the design team for Freedom Park, the national heritage destination for reconciliation and remembrance that opened near Pretoria in 2004, and participated in the 6th Beijing International Art Biennale in China in 2015.