Silvio Mannello says that wherever he casts a judicious eye he always envisages a potential work of art.
This time around, a simple photograph of Bryce Gibbs, on loan from the Carlton Football Club, served as Mannello’s source of inspiration.
The end result is Gibbs as you’ve never seen him before - a unique acrylic on canvas, measuring more than a metre high and just under 90 centimetres wide, depicting Carlton’s No.1 draftee.
“When I saw this particular photo I was taken by the pose and the look. Bryce fixes his glance straight ahead, one-on-one almost,” Mannello says.
“The photo told me that Bryce means business because there was a steely resolve. For me, Bryce represents the new era, but in some way he also represents the past - that is, the strength and the power we once had at Carlton and want to get back. Talk Carlton and you always talked powerhouse.”
Mannello turned to technology to refine and edit the Gibbs photo. He then emblazoned an enlarged version of the image onto the canvas, and completed the work with specific tones. The whole process took several weeks.
“The finish you want is something which is clean – not one layer - but layers and layers of paint to give it that finish,” he says.
“It’s quite painstaking too because everything has to be so precise, but for me it’s a labour of love and someone who didn’t love this wouldn’t sit there for hours on end. Hopefully this comes through in the finished work.”
Twenty eight year-old Mannello, who lives in Melbourne’s northern suburbs, was a Monash university student who completed an honours degree in fine art, majoring in painting.
He now plies his craft as a senior art teacher at Samaritan Catholic College in Preston, where he oversees classes involving secondary students at all year levels.
Ask any supporter why he or she barracks for a particular football club and invariably it’s governed by family or fate. For Mannello, it’s definitely family.
“Dad was 13 and couldn’t speak a word of English when he arrived in Melbourne from southern Italy in the early 1960s,” Mannello says.
“The way he got introduced to football and to Carlton was that his brother-in-law was already a Carlton supporter and brought him along to the footy one day. For the next 25 years the pair of them never missed a Carlton game or a Grand Final, 1970 included.”
Mannello soon followed his Dad to Princes Park and later found work there as gatekeeper. That was a baptism of fire for him.
“My first casual job as a 15 year-old was to work on the back stairwell of the Richard Pratt Stand. I had to stop the rough nuts who tried to jump the fence there without paying for a ticket,” Mannello recalls.
Mannello served as Carlton gatekeeper for ten years, from 1995 through to the Farewell Game. To this day he remains on Carlton’s books, working when needed at any events scheduled for the old ground.
As for the Bryce Gibbs painting, Mannello has graciously donated his work to the Carlton Football Club. The portrait now hangs in Carlton Football Club’s reception.
