Patrick Lo Giudice

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Patrick Lo Giudice (*August 20, 1959 in Zürich) is a Swiss artist with Italian origins. His techniques are painting, collage, photography and encaustics. In Switzerland, he became known to broad public for his controversial series „Der Lo Giudice Code” (literally: “The Lo Giudice Code”): wax works of infamous Mafia homicides

[edit] Life

Lo Giudice lived in Graniti, Sicily (Taormina) for three years. During this stay in Italy, something traumatic happened to Lo Giudice, that later was the inspiration for his murder paintings: The bored boy, whose father dealt with a wood trader, walked along a line of parked cars, staring through their windows, to see the tachometers. He wanted to know which car was the fastest one. But one car seemed to have no tachometer – the child recognised that a corpse covered it. It supposedly was a victim of the Mafia. The Lo Giudice left the site without calling the police. They didn’t even speak about their experience at home, because the clans were very influential. Although the father - because he has been a communist/socialist - has never paid protection money to them for his wood-working business. But after a dud (a defective bomb) was found, that was aimed at the building (that was full with flammable varnishes), the Lo Giudice decided to live in Switzerland . (But the first work was made in Italy: a fresco in 1973 in the monastery Orfanotrofio Antoniano.)

In Switzerland, Lo Giudice started an apprenticeship in dentistry in Winterthur. In 1977 he painted with oil, in 1983 he worked with glass. He learnt lead glass techniques from John Forbes (USA). From 1985 to 1988 further stays at glassblowers and artists followed in Murano, Venice. 1993, first attempts with polycarbonate, 1996 with wax (encaustic). In 2002/2003 Lo Giudice had his works exhibited at the Kunsthaus Glarus, during an exhibition called „Künstler aus dem Linthgebiet“ together with other artists from the Linth area. Other exhibition places: Museum Amden“ (Canton of Sankt Gallen), as well as the „Galerie Marie-Louise Wirth“, Hochfelden that also had had paintings of Freiamt writer Silvio Blatter. In 2004 Lo Guidice’s so-called "Encaustik paintings" were at the gallery Andy Jllien, Zürich. In 2005 Lo Giudice participated in the project „Kunst liest“ in Herrliberg-Feldmeilen. In 2006 he again exhibited at Andy Jllien's, then he showed the series „Mafia“ (Cosa Nostra). Further, he was at „art felchlin – zeitgenössische Kunst“, too. Especially through his controversial Mafia-paintings, a broad public got to know Lo Giudice (He was in the newspapers and in TV, even in Kurt Aeschbacher's talkshow in SF1)