Erminio Aili

This article discusses the artworks of the Italian-born Australian artist Erminio Aili (1905–1987). His brightly colored sculptures made of everyday materials, which depict a culturally diverse range of human figures, gave voice to his identity as a member of the Italian global diaspora. Since their first public exhibition in 1988, these works have been often discussed as the products of a “naïve” or “outsider” artist. In this way, the unconventional character of his work has been interpreted as a sign of its separateness from traditional, modern and contemporary art. In opposition to existing studies that have positioned Aili as an “outsider” artist detached from the broader artistic and social sphere, this article compares his sculptural reliefs to culturally specific artistic precedents, including Italian religious art, works by Italian prisoners of war created during World War II, and Italian modernist painting. In so doing, I demonstrate that Aili’s sculptures are creative affirmations of an Italian cultural identity deeply informed by the artist’s experience of emigration from Italy to Australia and wartime internment by his adopted country during the 1940s.