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Born in 1954 in Bône, Algeria. Formed in the drawing of architecture and in sculpture during three years, at the Art schools of Nimes, it is by the chance of a restoration of antique decoys that in Mario DI MAIO the pleasure was born of returning to these birds their lost beauty. He thus prolonged an ancestral popular art of the Camargue, with the aims of revealing the beauty and diversity of birds and alerting us on the risks of their disappearance.
Quickly solicited by some purchasers and collectors, the requests became important and Mario DI MAIO could be able to devote itself only to the sculptures of the birds. From a permanent search for documentation as well as observations in natural environments, the sculptures in bark of cork oak, basic material for their realization, take life. Its creations, carried out natural size, represent birds now protected, such as the pied avocet, wader with black and white plumage,  the common shelduck, familiar of the ponds, the various egrets and herons, which all abound in the marshes near Aigues-Mortes, but also the birds symbols of the mediterannean area which are the bee-eater, the roller and the hoopoe. He also had turned to life, for the collectors, species now disappeared like ivory-billed woodpecker, the migrating pigeon or the parakeet of Carolina... He also proposes spectacular artworks like the greater flamingo, the canada goose or the osprey in flight. In 2007, he realized new sculptures for the 23rd international bird movie festival of Menigoute : Black-crowned Night-Heron, Common kestrel, Black-throated diver, Water rail, Corn crake, Common tern, fishing Atlantic puffin, and so on ...
You can find his artworks in Aigues-Mortes, in the workshop sale of the artist : 6 rue Sadi CARNOT  B.P. n° 78                                      30220 AIGUES-MORTES FRANCE Tel / Fax : 04.66.53.96.88 Access plan : - Aigues-Mortes               - Workshop

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