Sergio Toppi was one of the grand masters of comics, renowned the world over for his singular style. He re-wrote the rules of the genre with a visual architecture that frequently blended sequential art with illustration. The Italian used black and white contrast as a potent expressive tool, yet mastered the use of colour, too. And his refusal to be constrained by the classic panel grid allowed for more fluid storytelling. Toppi was also admired in graphic design and printing for his knack of making materials look realistic through his unique inking technique. It allowed him to create worlds that hovered somewhere between the realistic and magical in his adaptations of Eastern legends and explorations of colonial conflicts.
Sergio was born in Milan, in 1932. His childhood was overshadowed by the death of his musician father, in 1936, from tuberculosis contracted while serving as an army truck driver in the First World War. As a result, he was raised in a female-dominated household by his mother and grandmother. Toppi’s mother worked for art publishing house De Giuli Gaddoni Grassoccolo, which meant he was exposed to illustrated books from an early age.
Another profound influence on the young Sergio was the Second World War. After the Allies began bombing Milan in 1943, he and his family were evacuated to Bannio Anzino, a small town in the Italian Alps. But the war was never far away, and this mountainous region would soon see fierce clashes between partisans and Axis forces. Though he hated conflict, Toppi became fascinated with military gear, from weapons to insignia, as well as with how men were depicted in hostile environments.
At the end of the war, he returned to Milan and continued his secondary education, picking up a solid grounding in the arts and humanities. He then went to Castello Sforzesco Art School, but dropped out a year later, having found the curriculum outdated and boring. Next, he enrolled in medical school, where he met his future wife and lifelong companion, Aldina Monesi, but eventually quit so he could fully devote himself to drawing.
Toppi was to all intents and purposes an autodidact: he taught himself to draw by observing the world around him, and then refracting it through the lens of his imagination. Dense blacks are balanced out by the strategic use of negative space: the white of the page is used to isolate a face, give a busy composition breathing space or suggest the vastness of a landscape. The result is an aesthetic contrast of real expressive power.
In 1982, for the I protagonisti di Orient Express series, he created his first and only recurring character in The Collector. The eponymous protagonist is a cynical dandy who obsessively scours the planet for tribal artefacts and rare objects to loot. Through this anti-hero, Toppi gives us a scathing anthropological critique that contrasts ancient animistic cultures with the brutal progress of Western modernity.
excerpts from: https://www.pixartprinting.co.uk/blog/comics-sergio-toppi/
Nico Akselbo Hagémann: born in 1994, lives and works in Copenhagen. His work is rooted in graffiti, but from the beginning, he has always explored other disciplines like croquis, art nouveau, classic fine art, anatomical drawing, and surrealism.
Nico's inspiration is based on a very rootless and troubled upbringing, forcing Nico to find beauty in the most unexpected places and to find light in the chaos. He creates from life as it unfolds, using his extraordinary skills of mixing traditional craftsmanship with unexpected methods and materials. Life hands him the tools to visualize his thoughts and impressions, and he translates those impressions into visible form.
"The solo exhibition Perception Layers by Nico A. Hagemann, curated by Karen Dulong, explores the challenges of identity and self-perception in today’s world, where constant comparison (amplified by social media) makes it harder than ever to truly understand ourselves.
Drawing on his own experiences of inner turmoil, Nico transforms chaos into art, encouraging viewers to reflect on how societal and digital pressures affect their sense of self. Join us in uncovering the layers of self-perception and the search for authenticity in a world shaped by filters and unrealistic standards."
Pan Inkhoo
No comments:
Post a Comment