Kiko Gianocca

Kiko Gianocca

Through a process of transformation, which incorporates an explicit invitation for wearers to invest his pieces with their own meaning, Gianocca continues to produce profound works of jewellery that are able to carry elements of both our external and internal identities within a single piece.

Peter Jones

Swiss artist Kiko Gianocca explores materiality and form using a wide range of media such as porcelain, resin, felt, wood and precious metals. His work possesses a fineness of thought and application that sets it quite apart - regardless of the material or form, and Kiko's ouevre is wide ranging in this regard - there is a quiet intensity and subtlety in every piece. Kiko seems to believe that objects have, if not souls, at least the ability to communicate with and for us in ways that go beyond their objectness, if only we engage with them. In this regard, Benjamin Lignel has described Kiko's works as 'objects in waiting', articulate, charged, and full of a potential only realised once they are owned and worn.

Kiko Gianocca

Graziano (Kiko) Gianocca completed a Bachelor of Fine Art at the Art
Institute CFP, Florence in 1999, then went on to study within the invited student program at the Escola Massana in Barcelona in 2000-01. He lived in Melbourne between 2003 and 2008,completing his Masters in Fine Art at RMIT University and going on to teach there from 2004-2007. He returned to settle in Lugarno in 2008. He has taught since 2017 at the Hochschule in Lucerne and in
2018 was a tutor at the IED school in Milan.

Kiko was awarded the Swiss Design Prize in 2008 and the 2014 Mari Funaki Award. He has been included in significant exhibitions worldwide, including the Colin & Cicely Rigg Contemporary Design Award in Melbourne, Schmuck in Munich, and 2012's Unexpected Pleasures at the NGV, Melbourne and The London Design Museum, curated by Su san Cohn.

Kiko's work is in the collections of the National Gallery of Victoria, The Art Gallery of South Australia and Queensland Art Gallery, as well as at the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, CODA Museum, Apeldoorn (Netherlands) and MUDAC, Lausanne, among others.

View works

Featured exhibitions

  • Pareidolia

    Pareidolia

    Kiko Gianocca’s fourth solo exhibition at Gallery Funaki is titled 'Pareidolia', which refers to the human trait of perceiving in an object or sound a pattern or meaning that doesn’t...

    Pareidolia

    Kiko Gianocca’s fourth solo exhibition at Gallery Funaki is titled 'Pareidolia', which refers to the human trait of perceiving in an object or sound a pattern or meaning that doesn’t...

  • 2014 Mari Funaki Award for Contemporary Jewellery

    2014 Mari Funaki Award for Contemporary Jewellery

    We're thrilled to announce the inaugural Mari Funaki Award for Contemporary Jewellery. Mari was a unique and passionate advocate for contemporary jewellery in Australia, both through her own remarkable practice...

    2014 Mari Funaki Award for Contemporary Jewellery

    We're thrilled to announce the inaugural Mari Funaki Award for Contemporary Jewellery. Mari was a unique and passionate advocate for contemporary jewellery in Australia, both through her own remarkable practice...