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Milan, Italy

Paolo Rui

Illustrator

Imagination driven by a curious spirit

  • Paolo tells engaging stories through his illustrations
  • He works for editorial projects and creates paintings and sculptures
  • He passes on his knowledge and enthusiasm to students at several institutions

Paolo Rui is an illustrator who creates dreamlike artworks inspired by his curiosity of the world around him. His initial dream was to be military pilot, but he realised that it was not the path for him after passing selection at the Italian Air Force Academy in Naples. Paolo attended the Brera Academy of Fine Arts and won a Fulbright Foundation scholarship, which allowed him to take illustration courses at the Art Centre College of Design in Pasadena in California. "I discovered a world of astonishing, exciting technical and expressive opportunities. Then, when I came across the Italian Illustrators Association, my fate was sealed", he says. Today, Paolo works for different editorial projects and teaches at the Istituto Europeo di Design (IED), the International School of Comics in Milan and the Free Academy of Art Novalia in Alba. He is also part of the Board of EIF, the European Illustrators Forum. In his works, he likes to use different traditional painting techniques, mainly with acrylic and oil.


Interview

©All rights reserved
©All rights reserved
How would you define your work?
Cheerful, surreal and sometimes dreamlike. My pieces offers endless possibilities – one lifetime is not enough to artistically express everything I would like to express. This feeling is not destructive, it gives me a great boost of enthusiasm and pushes me towards better time management.
What are your sources of inspiration?
I am very curious, so I find inspiration almost everywhere, including history, geometry and animals. I have my fair share of references that have marked me, and the imprints can be found in my works. The artists I love most are Dino Buzzati, Canaletto, Alan Ford's cartoonist Magnus, Tullio Crali, Bosch, Magritte, Dalí, Matt Mahurin, Terry Gilliam and Albers.
How do you express tradition and innovation?
I do not think of myself as an avant-garde illustrator or artist, but certainly my work has evolved over time in a continuous search for order. Today, I am trying to use more geometry in my compositions and forms, and attempting to reintroduce perspective into my work, as very few artists work with it today.
Which techniques do you prefer?
I mainly use acrylic and oil paint. I often apply oil with glazes over a very well-defined acrylic base. I also enjoy working with digital collage and vector. With the first, I become the director of new stories made with protagonists I already know. With the second, I try my hand at geometry, numbers and math, which are elements I always loved.
Paolo Rui is a master artisan: he began his career in 1980 and he started teaching in 1995

Where


Paolo Rui

Address: Via Giovanni Fantoni, 20, 20148, Milan, Italy
Hours: By appointment only
Phone: +39 3477302877
Languages: Italian, English, Chinese
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