Career
In 1970 the Catalano family leaves Morocco for France. In 1982 he starts working at the Société Nationale maritime Corse Méditerranéest He stays there 4 years until 1986.He cites his experience as a sailor as central to his inspiration.
In 1981, Catalano gets acquainted with the work of clay.
He enrolls in Françoise Hamel’s modeling class in Marseille, which he attends for two years. In 1985 he opens his own art studio.
He acquires an oven in which he bakes his first clay figurines. Later Catalano began to make big bronze sculptures.
If his first works are compact and conventional the later series become increasingly expressive.
In 2004 a flaw in one of his characters – a depiction of Cyrano – prompts him to dig and hollow out the chest. A new path of work ensues. An exhibition took place in Marseille in September 2013, to celebrate its status as the European Capital of Culture with ten life-size sculptures exhibited at the port of Marseille.
