Domenico (Mimmo) Cozzolino
In 2001 Cozzolino diverted from a career in design to refocus his personal art practice, which he has maintained in his spare time for over 20 years. Drawing, photography and digital imaging now form the backbone of his practice. He is also a keen student of popular visual culture and has a photo library of stencil graffiti he has recorded around Melbourne over the past dozen years.
His interests in Australian iconography were awakened soon after arriving in Australia in 1961, from Naples, at the age of 12. His way of trying to fit in to his new culture was to study it with a view to understand it. After graduating as a graphic designer in the early 1970s he began to research material tracing the visual history of Australian trademarks. His findings were presented in Symbols of Australia, a profusely illustrated volume he co-published with Penguin Books in 1980. He was assisted on this project by the writer Fysh Rutherford. Symbols of Australia is still in print today, having sold over 35,000 copies.
In 1977 Cozzolino was co-creator of The Kevin Pappas Tear Out Postcard Book (Penguin Books) with the illustration co-operative “All Australian Graffiti”, a studio he co-founded. The book, a huge publishing success, prodded irreverently at Australian cultural curiosities and practices using the medium of postcards. As well as freelancing in his own studio, Cozzolino co-founded and run, with various partners, four design studio between 1971 and 2001. Cozzolino has received Honorary Life Membership of both the Melbourne Art Directors Club and The Australian Graphic Design Association, two organizations he had a hand in setting up. A number of his posters are held in the collections of the State Library of Victoria, the National Gallery of Australia and the Powerhouse Museum. In 2003 he won the Leica/CCP Documentary Photography Award (see www.ccp.org.au).
To date he has had three solo exhibitions:
Fotografics from Italy, Seal Club, Melbourne, 1983;
Flush: 1990-2003, The Band Hall Gallery, Kyneton, Victoria, 2003;
Arcadia del Sud, West Heidelberg, Melbourne Australia, Bungay Art House, Melbourne, 2003.
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