Domenico Ruccia (1986, Bari) lives and works in Milan. His research uses painting as a means of investigating time and the survival of the image, moving through iconographies and archaic memories that are gradually absorbed and transformed.
While in earlier bodies of work art history and citation functioned as explicit operative devices, his painting now tends to become more unstable and atmospheric, moving away from narrative construction and allowing suspended forms and structures to emerge.
This tension runs through the series of recent years, in which the relationship with the past takes not only the form of historical reinvention, but also that of an intermittent survival of the image.
His most recent series, Feral, is populated by hybrid figures immersed in ancestral landscapes, in which references to Renaissance and Eastern painting emerge. Here narrative gives way to a raw and prelinguistic image that touches on themes such as power and the relationship between the human and the divine.
Paolo Uccello’s Outtakes, on the other hand, imagines works that the Tuscan master chose never to show during his lifetime, opening up a reflection on the relationship between falsification, deviation, and imaginative freedom.
His practice also extends to sculpture, understood as the plastic emergence of natural yet ambiguous forms, in which matter seems to transform itself while retaining traces of memory.
After completing legal studies, he fully dedicated himself to painting, attending Brera Academy of Fine Arts in 2021.
Solo exhibitions include those at Galleria Alessandro Albanese (Milan 2026, upcoming), Galleria Renata Fabbri (Milan 2024), Iperstudio (Viareggio 2023), Collezione Pallavicini (Pavia 2023), Il Crepaccio (Milan 2021), Chiostro del Bramante (Rome 2018) e Fondazione Mario Moderni (Rome 2017).
His work has been exhibited in public and private institutions such as Fondazione THE BANK (Bassano del Grappa 2026), Castello di Belgioioso (Pavia 2025), Museo Civico Principe Guglielmo Romanazzi Carducci di Santo Mauro (Putignano 2025), Museo Giorgione (Castelfranco Veneto 2025), L.U.P.O. Gallery (Milan 2025), Ex Cartiera Pigna (Bergamo 2025), Galleria Alessandro Albanese (Matera 2025), Galleria Area/B (Milan 2025), Museo Civico di Asiago (2024), Galleria Civica Albani (Urbino 2023), Osservatorio Futura (Torino 2023), Galleria Arrivada (Milan 2023), YAG/garage (Pescara 2023), co_atto (Milan 2022), ArtDate (Bergamo 2021), Museo d’Arte Grafica Marchionni (Cagliari 2017) e Galleria Lorenzelli (Milan 2017).
He is included in the volume 222 artisti emergenti su cui investire 2026, curated by Cesare Biasini Selvaggi and published by Exibart, and he is among the artists featured in the Panorama mapping project by the Quadriennale di Roma, with a studio visit by Lorenzo Madaro.
In 2025 he wins the Rotary Prize in the Be the Difference contest, curated by Carlo Sala, and is among the winners of the 52° Sulmona Prize, curated by Ivan D’Alberto; he took part to ArtVerona and Mega Art Fair in Milan with Galleria Alessandro Albanese.
In 2022 he was in residence at VIR Viafarini-in-residence in Milan.
Bio
Bari, Italy, 1986
Studio: Via monfalcone, n.21, Milan, 20132
Education
2021 – MFA in Painting, Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, Milan
2018 – BA in Painting, Accademia di Belle Arti di Bari
2016 – Lawyer’s License to practice
2011 – MA in Law, Lum Jean Monnet, Bari
Solo exhibitions
2026 – La sera non finisce mai uguale, Galleria Alessandro Albanese, Milan (upcoming)
2024 – Quel pazzo di Paolo Uccello, curated by Lorenzo Madaro, Renata Fabbri, Milan
2023 – Storie di altre storie, text by Federica Fiumelli, Galleria Ipercubo, Viareggio
2023 – Confetti, Piersandro Pallavicini collection, Pavia
2021 – Introduction: Domenico Ruccia, curated by Alberto Ceresoli and Federica Fiumelli, Superstudiolo, Bergamo
2021 – Piccoli divertissement oculari, curated by Caroline Corbetta, Il Crepaccio
2018 – Toys, Chiostro del Bramante, Spazio nuove proposte, Rome
2017 – Memories Storyteller, Fondazione Mario Moderni, Rome
Selected group exhibitions
2026 – Ensemble 2026, Fondazione THE BANK, curated by Cesare Biasini Selvaggi, Bassano del Grappa
2026 – 100 anni di Moderni: Arte e Archivio in mostra, WeGil e Fondazione Mario Moderni, Rome
2026 – A line has time in it, curated by Vittoria Beltrame, Carta Magna, London
2025 – Fiòca – Racconto della neve, curated by Alberto Mattia Martini, Castello di Belgioioso, Pavia
2025 – Errabunda, curated by Roberta Mansueto, Museo Civico Principe Guglielmo Romanazzi Carducci di Santo Mauro, Putignano, Bari
2025 – L’arte contamina lo spazio, curated by Ivan D’Alberto, Polo museale civico diocesano Monastero di Santa Chiara, Sulmona
2025 – Sguardi, curated by Marco Casentini, L.U.P.O Gallery, Milano
2025 – Archetype, Galleria Alessandro Albanese, Chiesa del Purgatorio, Matera
2025 – Be the difference, curated by Carlo Sala, Museo Casa Giorgione, Castelfranco Veneto
2025 – Conversation with friends, curated by Francesco Mancini, Galleria Area/B, Milan
2025 – L’intimo Segreto del Mondo là fuori – Una ricognizione sulla pittura contemporanea, curated by Alberto Ceresoli, Ex Cartiera Pigna, Bergamo
2025 – Da Boetti a Candida Hofer, Galleria Alessandro Albanese, Collector’s Lounge, Milan
2024 – La Camera delle Meraviglie, curated by Anna Vittoria Magagna, Galleria Alessandro Albanese, Chiesa del Purgatorio, Matera
2024 – Gran Turismo, curated by Camillo Langone, Museo Le Carceri, Asiago
2023 – Maratona Di Visione, curated by Alberto Ceresoli, Bergamo
2023 – Summer storm, curated by Alberto Mattia Martini, Galleria Giovanni Bonelli, Milan
2023 – Under Raffaello, curated by Camillo Langone, Galleria Civica Albani, Urbino
2023 – Non rimane che volare, curated by Giuseppe Amedeo Arnesano, text by Lorenzo Madaro and Giacinto Di Pietrantonio, Osservatorio Futura, Turin
2023 – Icons Rebirth, curated by Andrea Lacarpia, Galleria Arrivada, Milan
2023 – Focus on Painting, curated by Ivan D’Alberto, YAG/garage, Pescara
2023 – Mirabilis, curated by Marco Casentini and Marco Cingolani, Palazzo Meravigli, Milan
2022 – Tales from the inside_out: Lost in the mirror, curated by Marta Orsola Sironi, Co_atto project space, Milan
2022 – La Curatela militante, curated by Giacinto Di Pietrantonio, Osservatorio Futura, Turin
2021 – Chimere, Superstudiolo & The Blank Contemporary Art, Art Date 2021 Festival, Bergamo
2021 – A new Body of Paintings, Superstudiolo & The Blank Contemporary Art, Art Date 2021 Festival, Bergamo
2016 – Works on Paper, The Brick Lane Gallery, London
Prizes
2025 – 52° Premio Sulmona. L’arte contamina lo spazio, curated by Ivan D’Alberto, Polo museale civico diocesano Monastero di Santa Chiara, Sulmona, winner
2025 – Be the difference, curated by Carlo Sala, Rotary club di Asolo e Pedemontana del Grappa, Museo Casa Giorgione, Castelfranco Veneto, winner
2021 – Combat Prize, Museo civico Giovanni Fattori, Livorno
2020 – Premio Internzionale Lexenia Arte e Giustizia, Montecatrini Terme, winner
2019 – Premio Marchionni, Museo d’Arte Grafica del Mediterraneo Marchionni, Cagliari
Residencies
2022 – VIR Viafarini-in-residence, Milan
Fairs
2025 – ArtVerona, Galleria Alessandro Albanese, Verona
2025 – Mega Art Fair, Galleria Alessandro Albanese, Milan
Bibliography
2026 – Direzione Pittura: intervista a Domenico Ruccia, interview by Cesare Biasini Selvaggi e Amina Berdin, Exibart
2025 – 222 artisti emergenti su cui investire 2026, edited by Cesare Biasini Selvaggi, Exibart
2025 – La nuova scena artistica milanese, text by Piersandro Pallavicini, il Foglio
2025 – Parola d’Artista, interview by Gabriele Langhi
2024 – A Milano il Rinascimento di Paolo Uccello secondo Domenico Ruccia, di Emma Sedini, Artribune
2024 – Studio visit by Lorenzo Madaro, Quadriennale di Roma
2023 – Ma questi quadri sono cose degli altromondisti, text by Piersandro Pallavicini, il Giornale
2023 – Domenico Ruccia, interview by Alberto Chiurato Ranzi, Ranzi Editore
2023 – Domenico Ruccia, L’Essenziale Studio Online
2022 – Intervista con Domenico Ruccia, Exibart.com
2021 – Colossal all’italiana, interview by Federico Palumbo, Osservatorio Futura
2021 – Paint! Paint! Paint!, interview by Alberto Ceresoli, Small Zine magazine
2021 – Voglio vivere nel mondo di Domenico Ruccia, text by Camillo Langone, Il Foglio