Bio
Born in 1969 in Milan, I was raised in an enriching family environment: my father, who worked as a sales director, loved drawing, painting loved drawing, painting, clay modeling and building model fighter planes that were attached to the ceiling and to the wall of my bedroom. As a very small child, I always tried to grab those planes when my mother picked me up, but of course I wasn't allowed to.
My parents still have one of my first drawings, I had just turned 3 years old and I was doodling on my chair, from the doodle came out, as it happens, a three-dimensional plane; I couldn't touch them, but I could draw them!
But my passion for drawing came out when I was attending elementary school; armed with pens and paper, I started to draw my favorite cartoon and comic characters: Spider-Man, Steel Jeeg and Mazinger! In those years I was inspired by the comics artist Gil Kane. In the early 80s I discovered colored pencils, though I feel immediately the need for a technique that allows me to color and shade uniformly large areas and backgrounds, without the granular texture. However, thanks to the colored pencils, when I was 11 I won a computer zx81, by participating in a TV contest with a caricature of Gaetano Scirea (a famous Italian football player) when Roberto Bettega announcing the winner said: "the first prize goes to Mister Marcello Barenghi!". My mother on the phone tried to explain him that I was only a child, but he didn't believe her.
Those are the years that my parents realized that they had to encourage my artistic skills. It always makes me smile to see that picture of the skiing holiday at Passo Mendola: my brother and my cousin excluded me from building a snowman, so I decided to make one all by myself.
I also receiving two honorable mentions by the then Archbishop Carlo Maria Martini.
In the mid-80s, I attended the "Boccioni" Art School in Milan where I learned to copy from life with charcoal and sanguine pencil, the techniques of tempera and watercolor, as well as 3-D modeling with clay.
In those years (1985) I found the solution to my technical problems: the airbrush. I went to buy it on the other side of the city, bringing home a heavy compressor. Thanks to the gun I was able to improve the effect of my pencil drawings. In those years I was fascinated by the work of Derek Riggs for Iron Maiden, I worked hard on the character of Eddie and on my way to represent him, greatly improving my technique.
After high school, I enrolled at the School of Illustration "Arte e Messaggio" in Milan, at the Sforzesco Castle, where my teacher Anna Montecroci was without doubt my point of reference. She was the first to talk about my personal style of hyperrealism and she advised me to leave for USA or France. In the early 90s I was inspired by the work of some great designers: Hajime Sorayama with its chrome robot, Tanino Liberatore, with its magnificent Ranxerox, Richard Corben, Eleuteri Serpieri with his Druna and Simon Bisley. They are very different, but all of them are great: for technical, vision or both.
In the mid-90s, the crisis and the computer graphics seem to mark the end of the traditional illustration, So I decided to stop drawing and I continued to study, graduating in Architecture and passing the Italian professional exam at the Polytechnic University of Milan. I could spend a lot of words talking about the disappointment that I got in my passed working career, but I prefer to focus on the positive things. So, twenty years after quitting, as I watched some drawing videos on YouTube, I decided to open a channel and start a new adventure...
THE EXHIBITION
The exhibition was divided into several rooms:
1. History Zone (photos and bio),
2. Pre-show - Enjoy the Exhibition Decoration,
3. Paintings (canvas painted live on YouTube),
4. Reproductions / Cartoons / Illustrations (some
5. Drawings (some of my most famous drawings on social networks)
6. Video Zone (speed drawings and tutorials)
7. Lighting Zone
8. Photo and Ending Zone
and of course the Art Shop (catalogs, gadgets, art supplies).
"LET'S DRAW"... CHILDREN HAVE FUN!
The exhibition was also designed to entertain children who enjoyed creating their hyper-realistic and 3D drawings, also experimenting with the use of the airbrush.
The exhibition was organized by Made in View in collaboration with Artemios and Pialux and with the support of STX, Felix, IPark Mall, Namee, Woori Bank, Enjoy Exhibitions and the Italian Cultural Institute of Seoul.
Click here to download the Exhibition Catalogue (pdf).
