In 1973 after graduating from the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna he worked at length in Carlo Signorini’s atelier in Ravenna where he had the chance to work closely with famous artists such Mušič, Dorazio, and Turcato.
De Luca’s first solo exhibitions, mainly pictorial works, date to the early seventies while his definitive break with painting came in 1977 when he exhibited old pieces of plaster stripped from abandoned farmhouse at the Voltone della Molinella Municipal Gallery of Art in Faenza.
He immediately turned to mosaic, consciously adepted it as his medium of choice. This key decision influenced the rest of his artistic career and was largely dictated by his own personal idea about the language of mosaics in which sculpture and painting are both an integral part of the process.
In the early eighties his innovative approach to mosaic technique led him to abandon cartoons which had so far been considered part and parcel of mosaic design and were still important in mosaics considered as an applied art.
One of the works he created during that period, “Topographic archaeology” (1985), in the first in which his novel style revealed the extensive artistic and scientific expertise he had acquired over the years, a style capable of fully exploiting the syntax of mosaic technique.
From the seventies onwards, and down to 2002, he has always dedicated much of his time to teaching: he is professor of art at the Gino Severini State Institute of Mosaic Art and he holds “Mosaico” workshop at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ravenna.
He settled permanently in Ravenna in 1982 where he opened his own atelier. This move also coincided with the foundation of the Associazione Mosaicisti di Ravenna (of which he is Vice President), the Italian branch of the International Association of Contemporary Mosaicists.
In 1998, discussions about the possible ways in which mosaics can be used led to an interesting meeting and exhibition entitled “De mosaico”, curated by Vanni Bramanti, focusing on the relationship between mosaic, street furniture and design. The production of furnishings and architectural modules designed by architects and designers such as Costantino Dardi, Bruno Minardi, Giorgio Gregori, Alessandro Mendini and Studio Alchimia was an eye/opener for contemporary mosaicists and led to more international exhibitions.
In 1996 he took part in the campaign to restore the Byzantine floor mosaics of the Domus of the Carpets of Stone in Ravenna. A year later he worked with Arnaldo Pomodoro on a sculpture for the Rocca of San Leo, to be displayed during the exhibition “Arnaldo Pomodoro. Sculptures for San Leo and Cagliostro”.
The book, Il mosaico per immagini, published in 1998, bears fitness to De Luca’s work as a teacher and is still considered a fundamental scientific textbook about Byzantine mosaics.
In 2003 he created the monumental mosaic “Mediterraneo” for the Library of Alexandria (Egypt). That same year he gifted “Luogo irraggiungibile” to the President of the Republic, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi.
In 2011 he participated in the IV Biennale in Moscow. A year later the Musivum Gallery in Moscow organised a solo exhibition and in September 2012, he was given an important exhibition at the MAR of Ravenna.
In 2015, a solo exhibition in the places of the cave churches Madonna delle Virtù e San Nicola dei Greci in Matera, capital city of culture 2019.
Marco De Luca currently lives and works in Ravenna. His works are present in several museums, institutions and private collection, in Italy and abroad.
2018
«Sedimentazione». Tour Saint-Nicolas, Paray-Le-Monial.
2015
«materia & luce» Le grandi mostre nei sassi. Chiese rupestri Madonna delle Virtù e San Nicola dei Greci, Matera.
2014
«La materia del tempo», Galleria d’arte comunale, Faenza.
2013
«Da una luş vëcia», Palazzo della Provincia, Ravenna.
2012
«Silicio con ̷ forme», Musivum Gallery, Moscow.
«Stralûs», Palazzo Meizlik, Aquileia.
«Marco De Luca», MAR, Ravenna
2011
«Il materialismo dell’incorporeo», Palazzo Autorità Portuale, Sala dei Rinoceronti, Ravenna.
2005
«Al fondo del visibile», Galleria Arte Studio Clocchiatti, Udine.
2003
«Aquae Lucis»,Galleria Patrizia Poggi, Ravenna.
«Mosaici di Marco De Luca», Galleria Cappella di Saint Eman, Chartres.
2002
«Marco De Luca», Galleria Patrizia Poggi, Ravenna.
«Marco De Luca», Galleria Arte Studio Clocchiatti, Udine.
2000
«Mosaici», Galleria Arte Studio Clocchiatti, Udine.
1997
«Arnaldo Pomodoro. Sculture per San Leo e per Cagliostro», Rocca, San Leo.
1996
«Marco De Luca. Opere musive», Galleria La Mosaïque, Bech/Kleinmacher, Luxembourg.
1994
«Il Viandante», Galleria dei Tribunali, Bologna.
1993
«Il respiro della pietra», Galleria La Bottega. Ravenna.
«De Umbris Idearum», Galleria dei Tribunali, Bologna.
1990
«Mosaici di Marco De Luca», Pinacoteca comunale, Ravenna.
1980
Cappella Pollack, Università degli Studi di Pavia, Pavia.
Galleria Il Nome, Vigevano, Pavia.
1978
Galleria La Bottega, Ravenna.
1977
«Lacerti», Galleria d’arte comunale, Faenza.
2017
«Montezuma Fontana Mirko». La scultura in mosaico dalle origini ad oggi, MAR, Ravenna
2014
«Scultura & Mosaico. Da Fontana a Pietro D’Angelo». Il Cassero per la scultura, Montevarchi.
«Retrospettiva 1965-2014», Museo dell’Accademia, San Pietroburgo.
2012
«The Beginning of the World», Palazzo della Repubblica/ Presidential Palace, Almaty
2011
«Reliquarium, progetto/project IV Moscow Biennale», Musivum Gallery, Moscow.
2010
«Architecture and Mosaics», Artplay, Moscow.
2009
«The artists and the mosaic», Schusev State Museum of Architecture, Moscow.
2008
«International exhibition of mosaic», Artplay, Moscow.
2007
«Mosaici contemporanei nei luoghi del mosaico antico», Quarto d’Altino.
«Biennale de la Mosaïque», Obernai
2001
«Opus 5», Paray Le Monial.
2000
«Giomavepa», Galerie Croux ̷ Beaux Arts, Paris.
«A living art», Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter
1998
«Nuove contaminazioni. Scultura, spazio, città», Civici Musei, Udine.
«Trasalimenti», Castelbasso.
1997
«Biennale d’Arte Romagnola», Galleria comunale d’arte moderna, Cesena.
«Nuove contaminazioni: mosaico, architettura, arte, design», Galleria d’arte moderna e Civici Musei, Udine.
«Oggetti del desiderio. Mosaico e design», Pinacoteca comunale, Ravenna.
1995
«Bella dentro», Palazzo della Provincia, Ravenna.
1993
«Mediterranea», Fiera Abitare il tempo, Studio Toni De Rossi, Verona.
1990
«Musica da Camera», Pinacoteca comunale, Ravenna.
«Paraxo 90», Andora, Savona
«XXXIV Premio Campigna», Santa Sofia, Forlì.
1986
«Ortografia mosaico», ArteFiera, Bologna.
1969
Premio internazionale studentesco INA ̷ TOURING per la pittura, mostra delle opere premiate, Palazzo Reale, Milano.