Lorenzo Di Mauro

Here's one "fine artist" I discovered while surfing the net, now I'm a big fan=)

Lorenzo Di Mauro

Born in 1954 in Italy, Lorenzo begins drawing comics and illustrations.

In 1980 he gets his early publications included a short illustrated story: "SuperPipe". In 1981 he moves to Rome and joins the Illustrators Association, just born in Italy.

For a couple of years Lorenzo continues to produce comics and illustrations, including his first Pin Up paintings, also beginning his collaboration as freelance illustrator with Italian subsidiaries of the most important international advertising agencies. During the 1980s, the advertising market in Italy offers alluring opportunities of financial reward and professional recognition and soon his time is booked up by these publicity works, painting mostly realistic illustrations.

He also works in publishing, fashion and motion-picture industries. Among other things, Lorenzo collaborates with Peter Greenaway, creating an illustration for the movie "The Belly of an Architect" [1987].

During the 1990s, his rapport with advertising remains quite intense, even if Lorenzo is no longer having so much fun. He works also in multimedia and experiences the creation of a number of interactive CD ROM and Internet animations. Samples of these works are showed at: www.visualshop.it

In 2001, Lorenzo goes back to one of his first passions: the creation of Pin Up paintings. Digital paintings, that is, because at that point he has already replaced his brushes with the graphic tablet.

Lorenzo did begin learning the digital painting since the early 1990s, nevertheless continuing to use acrylic colors, brushes and airbrush as he always has done before. Only after finding the means and the proper manual skill to create with digital media almost all that he was used to do with the natural media, Lorenzo begins using them professionally.

Today, in fact, Lorenzo works mainly in digital, though he sometimes is still using the old tools for traditional illustrations and commissioned works.

Influences: I was always inspired by the masters of the Italian Renaissance and by those of the world Illustration as Norman Rockwell, Frank Frazetta, Boris Vallejo, The Hildebrants and Hajime Sorayama.

Style: I like realistic style but also fantasy. I want to say that my realism is not quite to reproduce exactly the photo references. I love to create dreamy beauties with realistic rendering.

Check out his website: http://www.lorenzodimauro.com/