[1] Born in Șasa, a village in Gorj County, he graduated from the Tudor Vladimirescu High School in Târgu Jiu in 1966.
In 1972, he won the Musée 2000 Prize in Luxembourg,[3] and the City of Bucharest awarded him the scholarship of Theodor Aman in 1975.
In 1980, under the rule of Nicolae Ceaușescu, Ciocoiu left Communist Romania in search of greater freedom of creation.
In 2001, he was the subject of a Romanian documentary on exiles from the country during communist rule titled Mémoire de l'exil roumain.
In 2008, a traveling exhibition of Ciocoiu's works titled Pictor printre stele took place in Romania.