The spontaneous and colorful illustrations of Massimiliano Aurelio

Among Massimiliano Aurelio ‘s passions is music, to whose protagonists – including pop, rock and jazz – he has dedicated more than one illustration. In the past his points of reference belonged to the world of comics , among them Frank Miller, to which along the way the masters of illustration were added. Today, among his clients we find Mondadori, Il Sole24ore, The Guardian, Rolling Stone and Wired, just to name a few.

We asked him a few questions to get to know him better.

Hi Massimiliano and welcome to Picame. Do you want to introduce yourself to our readers?
I was born in Puglia, precisely in Taranto and after studying art and illustration at the IED in Rome I came to Milan where I entered the advertising field as an Art Director. Illustrating, however, is a passion that I have always had since I was a child, so in 2012 I decided to take the path of being a freelancer which initially saw me working both as a freelance art director and as an illustrator but which gradually over the years saw me increasingly plus the field and for the past eight years I have been working full time as an illustrator. In short, I draw to live and to relax I draw.

Do you remember your first drawing?
There is no trace of my first drawing in my memory but I remember very well some drawings related to my childhood. I remember them because I had the obsession of always depicting cranes building buildings and railway level crossings. I think I’ve drawn hundreds of them. My mother’s numerous art history books that I occasionally used to draw on in the absence of blank sheets of paper also know something about it.

The artificial creation of images now has a spectacular level of quality, which helps, but at the same time threatens, among others, the professionalism of illustrators . Various forms of creativity can be “imitated” by AI and therefore completely replace human processing. Jacopo Perfetti, a teacher and entrepreneur who knows the subject well, states: ” What worries me most is not that machines may one day think like man, but that man may one day think like a machine and therefore, Done, stop thinking .” What is your point of view?
It is a topic on which I have not yet been able to delve as deeply as I would like but from the few articles I have read I am very much in line with the words of my colleague and friend, the excellent Emiliano Ponzi, when in an interview published a few weeks ago on the subject he said: ” I have the feeling that there is a wave much higher than the shelter that can be found .” I can only agree, this is because if we already cannot control the tax evasion of small or large companies in the world, how can we control the images of other hundreds of millions of computers and users?
It’s too complicated, unless there is a restriction to the source where you access the images.
The thing that worries me most about ChatGTP or Midjourney is that many artists are probably influenced by them so much that they no longer work to express their own way of seeing the world, but to copy what AI will succeed.
I speak of artists, focusing above all on “commercial” illustration, which for reasons of time and budget does not have much time available for processing and publication. Instead, true artists have original, personal, inimitable styles.
People like Salvador Dalì or Picasso speaking of the past, and recent artists or designers like Blu or Zerocalcare, have nothing to fear from the programs. To conclude, I still recommend a site like Have I Been Trained? , a tool that allows artists to understand if their works have been used to train this or that algorithm linked to the app that generates digital art of the moment. I would call it one of the tools that opened the eyes of many other artists who were unaware that their works had been used in the training program.

Three artists that you would like to recommend to our readers.
Three are really too few but if I have to narrow the circle I would first recommend two great illustrators: the first and most current is Christoph Niemann who I consider one of the most brilliant minds in contemporary visual communication and who I had the pleasure of meeting a few years ago here in Milan .
The second is Miroslav Sasek who I continue to appreciate today as I did twenty years ago with his colorful line and witty and vintage, yet current style.
The last of the three but most linked to painting as an art form remains Amedeo Modigliani .

In addition to the jobs for which you are popular, do you have any other passions or secret dreams?
I have always wanted to have musical talent. One of the instruments that I have never touched but which remains on the wish list is the drums. I have loved it since I was a teenager when I listened to bands like Offspring, Nofx, Korn and I continue to appreciate it even today since my more adult ears have also been carried away by jazz music.

Is there an artist or character from the past or present that you would like to meet in person?
Even here just one becomes too restrictive. But I have always been fascinated by characters and artists like Toulouse-Lautrec in Belle Époque Paris who lived and transmitted in each of their drafts or works of art. I would have a lot of questions and curiosities to ask him so one meeting wouldn’t be enough.

A work goal that you would like to achieve within a year .
There are some projects in the works. The desire is to continue looking for new stimuli and not repeat previous experiences too much. There is an objective that I would like to try to achieve but I believe it will not be easy to complete within the next 365 groups. It is an idea about the history and events that happened in Milan in the last century in each decade and on different themes (architecture/fashion/events). Because Milan is the city that in Italy, more than others, has transformed a lot and continues to transform rapidly from year to year.

Can you tell us what you are working on these days?
I have just closed a very interesting project that I created for the Emilia Romagna Region and which has to do with the child/parent relationship in different age groups. At the same time I am finalizing a new illustration for the Yacht Boat International magazine which has “adopted” me as its official illustrator for almost two years now.