Piero Garreffa is a first-generation Italian–Australian artist living and working in Fitzroy, Melbourne. Raised in Mildura in regional Victoria on the banks of the Murray River on Latji Latji Country, he grew up navigating a dual sense of belonging—on one hand marginalised from his Italian heritage and the surrounding physical landscape, and on the other deeply at home within it. This tension continues to inform his practice.
Drawing on family histories, Italian and Calabrian cultural memory, Catholic iconography, and rural Australian experience, Garreffa’s work functions as a meditation on displacement, inheritance, and nostalgia. His visual language references the domestic rituals of the Italian diaspora—vineyards, kitchens, and devotional objects—alongside broader questions of identity and memory. A formative period living in Italy further grounded his practice in lived experience.
While conceptually rigorous, his work retains an intimate and personal quality. The objects and images often feel inherited rather than produced, carrying the quiet residue of family life, faith, and migration.
Piero Clemente Garreffa holds a Master of Fine Art from RMIT University. His work has been exhibited widely and recognised through major Australian art prizes, including the Paul Guest Prize and the Pro Hart Outback Art Prize. He has recently shown work in a group exhibition at Jacky Winter Gallery, Melbourne.