LEONARDO CUMBO is to be considered among the most representative Sicilian artists of the moment in the international panorama of contemporary art. Multifaceted artist: sculptor, painter, graphic designer, photographer, set designer, he has always loved to explore, with the spirit of the game, but with the awareness of the essay, the expressive and aesthetic potential of the most varied techniques and materials, starting from the most traditional ones to the more contemporary ones, arriving at original and amazing solutions. Irony, the artist's leitmotif, already exudes from the titles of his works and from the paradoxical situations that are often triggered in them. Ambiguities that deliberately disorient the viewer by unhinging commonplaces and conventional situations. His works stimulate reflections and lead to assume personal and authentic interpretative positions. The narration is developed with a symbology captured from the universe of everyday life through simple gestures but full of implications. All this manifests itself both in the monolithic creations and in the assemblages and in the multi-material multimedia and interactive installations, as well as in the digital reworkings of photographic images.

The Sicilian sculptor Leonardo Cumbo is among the 110 artists from all over the world who will participate in the prestigious international exhibition "Sculpture by the Sea" in Bondi (Sydney) in Australia from 22 October to 8 November 2021. Cumbo will present two unpublished multi-material sculptures, one large for the Mark Park and the other small for the indoor exhibition "Sculpture Inside".

In Pace del Mela, city near Messina, in Sicily, the construction of a War Memorial dedicated to the "Fallen in War" and all the "Victims of Violence" was completed. The Municipality, after careful research, had entrusted the task of designing and building the monument to the well-known Sicilian sculptor Leonardo Cumbo who conceived a complex and particularly original project for "Sicilian Region" square.

The monument, in fact, is made up of several elements that unfold in several points of the square: The most striking element is called "Collision" and depicts a large pointed wedge that violently protrudes from the ground, first crushing a large stone cube and then piercing , a large dove wing. A few meters away, three large brass nuts, two open and one intact, are placed on three bases of yellow stone and symbolize respectively: The Seed of Discord, the Seed of Concord and the Seed of Hope.

The Sicilian sculptor Leonardo Cumbo is exhibiting his multi-material sculpture "Star Fisherman" in Japan at the twenty-eighth edition of the UBE BIENNALE. His project was selected by a highly qualified Artistic Commission among hundreds of proposals from all over the world. Cumbo was the only european artist selected in this edition, together with other 14 artists from other parts of the world, who have created big sculptures at the Tokiwa Park in Ube. The Exphibition will be open to visitors in the Sculpture Park of the Ube Biennale,, until 2022.

In Caltanissetta, in the heart of Sicily, near the castle of Pietrarossa, at the monumental complex of Santa Maria degli Angeli, from 16 to 20 October 2019, the cultural event "Paesaggi di Mezzo" was held by Legambiente, and of Slow Food. Inside the ancient cloister of the convent, the artist Leonardo Cumbo set up a solo exhibition entitled "Kaleidoscopic Landscapes" where he exhibited his latest digital creations printed with a special ink on circular aluminum plates and retouched by hand. The exhibition aroused much curiosity and interest, attracting a large audience.

As part of the cultural event "Paesaggi di Mezzo" which took place in Caltanissetta at the monumental complex of Santa Maria degli Angeli, located at the foot of the Pietrarossa castle, from 16 to 20 October 2019, an exhibition by the sculptor Leonardo Cumbo. In the courtyard in front of the church, some sculptural elements of the War Memorial have been exhibited for a square in the Sicilian city Pace del Mela near Messina. The sculptor also exhibited some photographs of his monumental sculptures made with the Sabucina stone extracted in the hills of Caltanissetta. The event aroused much curiosity and interest, attracting a large audience and numerous school groups.

"OF HEAVEN AND EARTH"

It is the title of the diptych made on glass with mixed technique by the artist Leonardo Cumbo and presented at the Sacred Art exhibition "Luce da Luce", curated by the art critic prof. Diego Gulizia, which took place in San Cataldo (CL) in the exhibition halls of the church of Santa Maria di Nazaret from 10 to 27 January 2019. The exhibition was attended by more than forty renowned artists who were asked to conceive the their own works, to be inspired by the key words of the prayer of the 'Our Father'.

The Tre60 Lab Cultural Association, organizer of the cultural event "RADICA 2018", invited the sculptor Leonardo Cumbo to create a sculpture for a small square with a wonderful view on the sea in the historic center of San Marco d'Alunzio, one of the most beautiful towns in Italy. Cumbo created a bizarre bench sculpture entitled "Hot Ice". The suggestive and paradoxical work of art was obtained by assembling two large masks made from two sculpted blocks of local marble, one red and one gray, with a chestnut plank, also carved in several points

The work of the sculptor Leonardo Cumbo, 'Repulsive attraction', has been placed on the seafront of Gela. Donated to the community by entrepreneur Nino Miceli in memory of a city that has given him so much, but which has taken away as much because of the mafia. A sculpture chosen among many in which the entrepreneur has deeply reflected himself because this work raises numerous questions, and is paradoxical, as is his condition of life. An oxymoron that embodies the struggle, and at the same time the reconciliation.
Two figures regulate their distances by stretching a rope within a frame where the bizarre scene unfolds against the bright blue background of the Mediterranean Sea.

"Fragile Balance"is the title of the sculpture that Leonardo Cumbo, the only Italian artist, created in 2018 for a public space in Yukuhashi, a city in southern Japan, as part of an International Urban Sculpture Symposium.

"Counterpoint" is the title of the stone work by Sabucina that Leonardo Cumbo created for the green space of the "Filippo Juvara" State Art Institute of San Cataldo in the province of Caltanissetta

The Luciano Benetton Foundation has acquired a work of art by the Sicilian artist Leonardo Cumbo in its collection. His canvas was exhibited in February and March 2017 at the Cantieri Culturali della Zisa in Palermo as part of the international traveling exhibition "Imago Mundi - Identita siciliane". The exhibition will make several stops around the world.

The sculptor Leonardo Cumbo carved an artistic tabernacle in limestone from Comiso and made the Eucharistic seat in mirror-polished gilded bronze for the church of Santa Rosalia in Niscima in the sicilian city of Caltanissetta. The scene depicted in high relief is inspired by some significant passages from the Gospel.

The sculptor Leonardo Cumbo, collaborated by the artist Tina Aldisi, completed the artistic furnishing of Garibaldi square located in the heart of Riesi, a town in the province of Caltanissetta. In 2013 the two artists had won first place in a Contest of Ideas promoted by the A.GI.S.CO Association with the patronage of the Municipality of Riesi and voted, in part, by the citizens;

the artistic furniture consists of: - 4 terracotta sculptures on Comiso stone bases, depicting scenes from "Games of other times"; - 3 sculptures / benches with the seat in Sicilian marble supported by elements in Sabucina stone, wood and terracotta inspired by the agro-pastoral culture and by concrete planters with attached buttacs; - 3 commemorative stems dedicated respectively: to Immigrants, Miners, Tullio Vinai and Don Scuderi, made of Sicilian marble, resin, minerals, terracotta, rope, etc.

The commemorative plaque dedicated to Judge Antonino Caponnetto, made on behalf of the Municipality of Caltanissetta and placed in a flowerbed in the historic center, is the work of the sculptor Leonardo Cumbo. Founder of the Antimafia Pool, Caponnetto, together with the judges Falcone and Borsellino, dismantled the so-called Mafia "Dome" of "Cosa Nostra" in the 90s thanks to an innovative system of reconstruction of the facts. The tombstone contains the high-relief portrait of the magistrate, caught in the act of observing a puzzle under construction. The scene takes place in front of a half-closed window that reveals a glimmer of light, a symbol of hope.

In Japan the 2016 edition of the International Exhibition of Contemporary Sculpture, held inside the Miyazaki Airport, ended with a great success for the Master Leonardo Cumbo, who presented a small sculpture in bronze, stone and wood, dedicated to eminent figure of Galileo Galilei and his farsighted ability to see things 'beyond'. The Italian artist was greatly appreciated by the public who visited the exhibition copiously..

Four large bas-reliefs depicting as many salient episodes in the life of the Saint are placed in the entrance door of the church of Santa Rosalia in Niscima. These sculptural panels were made by the Nissen artist Leonardo Cumbo with the ancient lost wax bronze casting technique. Inside the church you can also admire his other artistic interventions, among which we remember the terracotta panels of the altar, the ambo and the wall that contains the precious reliquary of Santa Rosalia, the ambo and the baptismal font in stone of Comiso, the seat of the Blessed Sacrament in white stone and gilded bronze.

"Sculptures and Landscapes ... Between Reason and Emotion", is the title of the solo exhibition, which the artist Leonardo Cumbo has set up in a very particular and suggestive place: the ancient cistern of the Federiciano Castle of San Marco d'Alunzio, in the province of Messina, one of the most beautiful towns in Italy. The event, organized by the GADAM of the Municipality of San Marco d'Alunzio, was presented on 20 December 2015 by the Mayor Amedeo Arcodia and by the curator Eugenio Di Francesco who has been following the surprising art of this eclectic artist for some time. . Fixed until January 30, 2016, the exhibition lasted for a few more months.

The Sicilian artist Leonardo Cumbo participated in the 2015 Milan EXPO where he exhibited in the spaces of the Custer Bio-Mediterraneo some sculptural works such as "Melamorphosis" and "Erotic Fruits" and some large digitally reworked photographs printed on aluminum and manually retouched. He also set up a clay modeling workshop for a few days together with his colleague Tina Aldis. The artistic event aroused great curiosity and sensation.

During the "Gioeni Art Action 2015" event, the original sculpture / bench by the Nissen artist Leonardo Cumbo entitled "Through the infinity of full love" was placed in the heart of the Gioeni Park in Catania. The sculpture, made of Sabucina stone and wood, takes inspiration from the gesture of generosity and donation, even at the cost of their own lives, made by historical figures remembered with commemorative plaques in Viale dei Giusti, also within the Gioeni park itself.

The sculptor Leonardo Cumbo was the only Italian artist selected in Turkey at the International Symposium of Scutura "Water & Stone" which took place in Managvat in Antalya at the end of summer 2015. The Sicilian artist created, in a few days , a large sculpture in white marble, two and a half meters high, entitled "Drop of Life" and intended for the embellishment of a green space within the Turkish city.

The Sicilian artist Leonardo Cumbo participated in the collective exhibition of teachers and students of the Academy of Fine Arts in Catania, where he has been teaching since 2007, entitled "The Devotion of S'Agata, Homage to the Saint" which took place from 25 January to 13 February 2014 at the Palazzo della Cultura in Catania. For the occasion Cumbo created a work on canvas using digital techniques and manual retouching.

Great success for the Sicilian artist Leonardo Cumbo at the contemporary art exhibition "Art Factory 04" which took place from 8 to 11 May 2014 at the Ciminiere in Catania. In a pavilion of his own, Cumbo exhibited, in addition to some sculptures, numerous paintings made on canvas with digital techniques and hand-made retouching, entitled "Landscapes" and "Scars"

Above "Tusa" 2014

"Free Flight" is the title of the monumental sculptural complex created by the Sicilian sculptor Leonardo Cumbo, assembling seven blocks of white marble carved in Hasan Dede, a city a few kilometers from Ankara, Turkey, during a Symposium International Sculpture held in the summer of 2013

The sculptor Leonardo Cumbo created a statue in white Carrara marble representing the Risen Christ for the "Rosso di San Secondo" Mutual Aid Society of Catanissetta. The monument was placed in 2013 in the square in front of a new building of the Company inside the Caltanissetta cemetery.

"SCARS" Art exhibition

PORTUGAL - Giraldes da Silva Gallery, Porto - from 12 to 28 February 2011

SPAIN - Centro Cultural "La Estacion", Guillena, from 15 to 30 April 2011 / Palacio de Exposizicones "La Pergola", Castellon de la Plana, from 13 to 15 May 2011

ITALY - "Villa Barile" art gallery, Caltanissetta from 16 to 19 June 2011

Lenardo Cumbo presents about 40 canvases, the result of his over twenty years of research on surfaces

Catalog curated by Diego Gulizia

The artist Leonardo Cumbo participated in the National Sculpture Symposium which took place in the spaces of the Ente Cassa Edile di Enna from 1 to 15 October 2011. The event was sponsored by the Prefecture and 14 Municipalities of the Province of Enna to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy. A technical-scientific committee chaired by the Enna artist Mario Termini has selected 14 professional sculptors from different regions of Italy who have been entrusted with the task of creating as many monumental sculptures in white Comiso stone inspired by the theme of the Unification of Italy. Finally, the works were located in the most significant places in the participating Municipalities. The work of Leonardo Cumbo, the only Sicilian artist selected, was placed in the center of a small square in Enna Bassa.

"Italian puzzle" by Leonardo Cumbo

SOULMATES

Beech wood sculpture created by the artist Leonardo Cumbo in August 2009 in the ancient village of Tavernola San Felice, a small hamlet of Aiello del Sabato in the province of Avellino as part of the sixth edition of the Fiano Music Festival.

Lifetime Achievement Award

"The Temple" Trophy

Delivered on February 28, 2009 in Palermo a Lifetime Achievement Award to the artist Leonardo Cumbo by the Director of the Civic Museum of Modern Art "G. Sciortino" (PA) S. Autovino, in the presence of Prof. AF Biondolillo and the Publisher S Serradifalco for his intense artistic activity carried out in Italy and abroad.

BREATH OF LIFE - 2008

The construction of a multi-material sculptural complex dedicated to the Birth of Man was completed in Piazza Puglisi in Francavilla di Sicilia in the province of Messina.

BREATH OF LIFE - 2008

The construction of a multi-material sculptural complex dedicated to the Birth of Man was completed in Piazza Puglisi in Francavilla di Sicilia in the province of Messina.

SOULMATES

It is the title of the monumental work in white stone of the Maiella commissioned by the Proloco of Cellino Attanasio, a small town in the province of Teramo. that Leonardo Cumbo sculpted in July 2008 for the green space of the former Convent of San Francesco.

Mother Earth

Located in front of the Town Hall of Serradifalco, it is a sculpture-fountain inspired by the history of the town in the Province of Caltanissetta. Author of the monumental stone work of Comiso, the Nissen sculptor Leonardo Cumbo

"Remembering September 11th"

A monument in memory of the victims of the attack on the Twin Towers in New York was inaugurated on December 18, 2005 in the Peace Park of San Cataldo (CL). The sculptural complex was created by the Nissen sculptor Leonardo Cumbo

"Pull and Spring"

Original sculpture in Calatorao stone, 1.80 meters high, made in July 2005 by Leonardo Cumbo for a playground in Utebo, a Spanish city near Zaragoza.

"Vital Explosion"

It is the title of the bizarre sculpture of two and a half meters high in Calatorao stone that the Nissen artist Leonardo Cumbo sculpted "live" in April 2005 in Monzon (Huesca) for a square in the Spanish city as part of the international exhibition of contemporary art "ARTERIA 2005"

"Curtain"

It is the title of a sugar sculpture created by Cumbo during the International event which has been held since 2004 in Caltanissetta from 30 October to 2 November

S-Culture di Zucchero

"Repulsive Attraction"

by Leonardo Cumbo. Mixed technique, exhibited in Fraga, Spain, at the exhibition "Calitri, Por Amor al Arte" from 14 April to 15 May 2004. This is the pictorial version of an installation in glazed terracotta and stainless steel that the author is making for the historic center of Calitri (AV)

"Mela-morphosis" is the title of a large multi-material sculpture with which, in 1993, the artist Leonardo Cumbo was selected for the prestigious "Suzzara Award" in the province of Mantua.

"Straccio di ... ferro" is the small-scale sketch of an urban sculpture in Sabucina stone created by the artist Leonardo Cumbo in Terrasini in 1996.

R: My history as an artist does not follow the stereotype of an orthodox path that includes traditional studies at the artistic high school, after middle school, then studies at the Academy of Fine Arts and finally the profession of artist through the gallery circuit. In fact, despite having always had an innate propensity to express myself through the instrument of the visual arts, recognized from childhood by teachers and professors who were amazed by the drawings I made at school, after secondary school I attended high school for science and medicine, following the family footsteps, believing that this was the safest way from a working point of view. But the passion for art has always smoldered under the ashes and has always knocked insistently on the doors of my mind and heart so one day I abandoned Medicine and enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Palermo where I graduated in Sculpture.
Leaving a safe path to take a leap in the dark had proved a winner. In fact, I immediately began to work hard creating large sculptures for the artistic furnishing of public spaces in various Italian municipalities and subsequently also abroad such as in Spain, Germany and recently in Japan where I was the only European to have been selected at a very important international monumental sculpture event among hundreds of artists from all over the world and in October I will be in Sydney, Australia where I will place a large stainless steel sculpture in a park.

My artistic activity is not limited to sculpture but ranges in other sectors of the visual arts such as photography, painting, graphics and digital art, I have also been teaching for several years at the Academy of Fine Arts in Catania in the course of Sculpture where I am Professor of Sculpture Techniques and in the Decoration Course at Design address where I teach Ornamental Plastic. To those who ask me what your favorite technique or material is, I usually reply: "what I don't know yet". In fact, I particularly love experimentation that automatically leads me to always confront myself with new techniques and new materials.

The themes that I have dealt with and that I deal with in my artistic production are many and perfectly reflect my thoughts and my mood of the time in which I made them.
Let's say that all my works can be grouped into six major categories by thematic affinity: we have the Collisions, in which a rather violent clash takes place between two elements, usually of opposite nature. For example: a natural element such as a shell is pierced by an artificial element such as a bolt, or a hard element such as a screw pierces a soft cloth or a wax candle splits a large threaded rod in two. These are mostly sculptures made in his youth, we are talking about the 90s with stone material. The developed theme perfectly expresses my mood of that period when I was torn between the reasons for rational reflections and the impetus of the gut choices with which the first contracted. The production of the "Way out" follows: these are mainly multi-material installations in which I use many poor materials such as coal, gypsum, recycled objects but also resins and acoustic and lighting systems. In these works irony and paradox make their entrance, two ingredients that together allow us to find bizarre but effective solutions to escape from hopeless situations. These works coincide with the period of my life in which I question all the passively acquired certainties in the course of a conventional education within a bourgeois society in which I was fully inserted, to arrive at completely personal and not at all obvious principles and beliefs. The "Counterpoints" follow, where the elements depicted with the technique of sculpture but also, more recently, in the digital reworking of the photographic material, contrast with each other but this time, integrating and enhancing each other harmoniously. Reason and emotion have finally made peace and can dance and dialogue without friction but rather lovingly compensating each other.
Regarding the photographic research I mentioned earlier, we can distinguish three types: Scars, Kaleidoscopic Landscapes and Circular Landscapes.
All those digital reworkings, printed on canvas, of photographs of tree bark, peeling walls, rusty metal surfaces, belong to the Scars group, while those images of landscapes overturned several times mirror-like and finally printed on aluminum plates or on glass with special inks. The latest production concerns the Circular Landscapes where the suggestive images reworked on the computer are printed on circular aluminum supports.

In Leonardo Cumbo's expressive poetry there are never precise references to a real event, but rather the intense eruption of passion. They are sculptures that exalt precise symbols; in this direction we should mention the work performed on the theme of the Conjurer who, in addition to being a construction of strong impact, has an archaic color that results from the meticulous work that the artist chooses and models each time. In the case of the sculpture for the Cozzotondo villa in Montedoro, the work is in Sabucina stone, which is the most suitable for that space in terms of texture and color. The choice of bronze, Roman travertine and steel for the Altalena sculpture, a monument dedicated to Justice, made to be placed at the entrance to the town of San Mauro Castelverde, in the province of Palermo, is equally excellent. The works of Leonardo Cumbo are a continuous upheaval of sentiments elaborated by a fully mature and sensitive artistic personality to the mythical significance of sculptural representation. His way of dealing with the fundamental problem of the occupation of an open space is especially interesting. Exemplary, in this regard, the sketch of the Fishermen of Miti, winner of the national competition for the construction of a monument dedicated to fishing for the port of Mazara del Vallo. Here Leonardo Cumbo assembles bronze, Roman travertine, steel and copper, not only defining the dynamics of the building, but also expressing a chromatic and narrative effect. A figurative sculptor, however, he sometimes relies on informal elements, as in the large sculpture dedicated to the tale Ciaula discovers the moon. In this homage to Pirandello, a poetic intuition makes the moon an illuminated object, visible even at night, which caresses the colors of bronze, Roman travertine, Peruvian onyx and terracotta of which the work is expertly composed. There are obviously two ancestry of this sculptor, realism and symbolism, which participate equally in his creativity, while the whole of his works has a unitary stylistic character, where the meaning is never pretext. Indeed, it responds to a need to communicate directly and immediately, which goes far beyond the response to a public client, which for obvious reasons represents the privileged position for a sculptor of this stature.
In the past Cumbo has also adopted an almost baroque expressiveness, as was the case for his School of Flight, of bronze and Roman travertine and of relatively small dimensions, an all-round construction of immediate visual impact, where the color scheme was already enhanced in the contrast between the materials. Of Cumbo's works it is also necessary to emphasize the craftsmanship dimension; without the mastery of an experienced manual culture, many of his plastic conceptions would be lost, and his making would not be meaningful without the rare ability to arouse vibrations on the surface of matter. His constructions can be read both in their three-dimensionality and in the play of tactile and luminous contrasts that animate the mixed materials they are made of. While respecting the most classic aesthetic canons, this plastic writing is completely contemporary in the game of symbolic clarification, which broadens and contracts the signs, taking them to the extreme consequences of a substantial abstraction.

Vittorio Sgarbi

from "I giudizi di Sgarbi" ed. Mondadori- 2005