Beaten Arts

An interview with Ukrainian portal AZH

http://www.azh.com.ua/newspage.php?subaction=showfull&id=1244031427&archive=&start_from=&ucat=5 this is the link for the interview and here is a translation in english:

Please tell us about yourself: how old are you, where are you living,  how you became illustrator, where do you work?

Hi!i’m Tommaso Meli.i’m a 28 years old graphic designer, i live in Parma, in the north of Italy, a city famous for its food tradition and for the romanic art wich is like a nice and pretty chick with no real substance, a shell with no soul.
I’m not a full time illustrator , i never had any art education so i started illustrating only as a therapy for myself, everything happens after i finish my work (postive feedbacks, collaborations, books, shows, etcs.) is an awesome bonus.Well, sincerly speaking, it’s a great satifsaction everytime i see someone that can relate  with my works or simply appreciate them for their aesthetic,  but this goes into another toatal different discussion.I try to use my self-destructing ideas to build or create something that it can be somehow beautiful or satisfying, “in primis” for myself  than for the others, sometimes i reach what i’m aiming for, someothers i don’t, that’s way i need to train hardto get more ways to express.I usually work(as both,graphic designer/illustrator) into my room wich is a “double edged” blade cause the place where i “cure” myself is the same where i “get sick” and where is sleep and do everydays things.I need to resolve this thing as soon as possible. 

What has biggest influence for your art?

I think my works go straight under the label(wich is basically a non-label) of “Low Brow” or “pop  surrealism”. This genre is influenced by an incredible variety of styles, medias, ideas, philosophies and this is a good thing cause it’s always evolving, it connects a huge number of persons without restriciting them into rigid categories .Il litteraly underline things we share instead of creating contrapposition or putting our Eritages/styles/social estraction first.

Music Genres(hardcore-punk/elttro/old school hip hop), life styles(skate/snowboarding- street style - vegetarianism), entertainments(Japanese Animation,Manga,Videogames, Movies, Comics),tattoo art(Japanese Horimono, U.S. traditional, Mexican “Los Muertos”),Asian arts( Tibetan,Japanese, Indian,Chinese), all of these things have a big part in my all-days life and influence me directly or not.

Could you call some your favorite artists?

Well it’s big-huge-mega list that goes from street art,tattoos,comics to more conventional arts, i’ll name the firsts that came to my mind:Blu, ericailcane, Os Gemeos,”Beautiful Losers”collective, kill pixie, Dan May, Jeff Soto, Jason Limon, Jeremy Fish, the belgian collective “hellomonsters”, Heiko Muller, Katsuhiro Otomo, Mamoru Oshii, Hayao Miyazaki, Moebius, Milo Manara,the horimono master Horioshi III, Egon Schiele, Alfons Mucha , i could name them for hours…i can find infinite “favorite artists”, it’s all about my mood of the moment that makes feel more fit with an artist instead of another

Has your illustrations any stories or massages? Could you explain some of them for your choose?

My illustrations are basically all i have to say or i can’t explain clearly enough with words, they are all about big and small things in my life, they are full of messages and symbolism and i’m pretty sure they are hard to decode at the deepest level but they are all based on pretty common feelings, easy to recognize i would say.The mood in them is most of time pessimistic, disillusioned about life and delusional, but as i said, i use them as a therapy/cure, have you ever heard of someone going to a doctor and asking for a cure cause is too fit or healty? or someone going to the therapist and lamenting an excessive state of happyness or joy :D? I also find myself not good at drawing happy and cute things so i let this buisness to people that are better than me(and ther is a huge bunch out there :) )
Since i have the chance to explain some of my works, wich is not a common thing i think, i will go for two of my most “felt” works:

The Frist one is ”a story of lifes and lines(and lies),the life thread”:  well the title it’s pretty self-explaining , this work is about the sense of oppression that i feel sometimes when i’m not able to stop/slow down the avalanche of events that keep melting merging and influencing eachothers.I did various drawings with this theme, everyone with a different mood or stroke, but this one is sure “the darkest” and the hardest to look at cause it brings up bad moments and memories.I had totally lost the control every single aspect of my life, phisical and mental health, love, friendship, career, ego, self-exteem. Everything went downhill like an unstoppable avalanche that kept growing constantly and the harder i tried to put order in that thread of events the harder i failed, giving me the feeling i was playing and already written screenplay i was only acting without having a chance to change it. I truly felt my actions were totally useless.

The other  work is “ciao nonna” wich it means “bye granmother”Recently i’ve lost my old beloved granma wich was like a mother to me, she raised me till my 16 when my parents were busy with their respective works, i owe her most of my awesome childwood and most of the benfits of my life belong to her and to her incredible strenght. I tried to do something lyrical and “dreamy”  but i will never be able to make that person the deserved justice  but at least i tried :).I wanted her as the lightsource in the drawing i think i got the effect somehow..

How do you created them, do you make draft on paper before use computer or whole illustration you make in computer at once?

the process dipends on the media i’m going to use.When i go for anologic way i use the classical methods(sketching-inking etc), but when i go in the digital way i build everything with softwares(illustrator, Photoshop) and a tablet. if i use vectors i go straight to the final drawing and i do corrections or changes in the process. I must say that Computer has a big role in my “art”, it helped me a lot with my lack of art education.

Have you has any exhibitions (personally or group) in your live?

I have been into various group shows and i have some others coming in the future but i never had a solo show, and i feel pretty indeguate (about having a solo s.) seeing how good are other people out there, maybe in the future i will change this idea 

Does any magazines or books use your pictures in their issues?

I have my works, in/onto some books/fanzines/t-shirts all around the world and all of this thanks to “the internet” wich i think it’s a fantastic place to share and find people and also gave me the chance to collaborate with some super talented guys like Leo Espinosa or “the pearpicker”

Could you tell us about your local art scene, could you recommended some other artist to see, galleries, places, maybe tell us something interesting  

As i said before my city is pretty polite and well educated but we have our unconventional talents here, i have two friends wich are super skilled and do fantastic works, They are James Kalinda and PsychoBoy54,they have incredible skills and techniques and they “think” and “do” in a very radical way! I love the things they do a lot!You can find them on flickr, i suggest you to check their galleries if you want some unconventional medicines.I think we are going to do something together in the near future 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/24968771@N02/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/33868674@N08/

In my region (Emilia-Romagna) the scene is pretty alive and two of the most important italian artists live here , i named them before into my faves, they are ericailcane and blu(blu).They do some of the most awesome walls in the whole world and Blu is famous for his animations in stop-motion painted over the walls like “muto” wich literally blow aways the whole international art community 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuGaqLT-gO4 

These two guys provide universal messages that seems our nation have forgotten, infinite respect to them for showing the world we still have a brain

Tommaso “pariah” Meli