A Visit with Bruno Zocca
February 16th, 2022 by jules
It is a pleasure to welcome Italian illustrator Bruno Zocca to 7-Imp today. Bruno discusses his illustrations for Davide Calì’s Mio nonno gigante, published in 2018; illustrating for The New York Times; the artistic collective he created with two illustrator friends; and more. We haven’t seen Bruno’s work published here in the States, but I hope we do one day.
Let’s get right to it. Here is Bruno — in his own words. I thank him for visiting and sharing so much art.
In 2018, I was contacted by the Italian publishing house Biancoenero Edizioni to create the illustrations for Mio nonno gigante (2018) [pictured below], a small illustrated book with text by Davide Calì. The following year, those illustrations won the Premio Letteratura Ragazzi, which was a nice surprise. It’s the story of a grandfather who becomes more than six meters tall. At one point, he escapes to town as a sort of King Kong and his family follows his trail to bring him back home. In the illustrations, I played with the dimensions of the grandfather: In some pages he doesn’t fit in the frame; in others he is compressed as if he is about to explode — and he can stretch his legs only if he has a double page available.
I also made some covers for Biancoenero Edizioni …
(Click image to enlarge)
(Click image to enlarge)
… and I enjoyed illustrating the chapter openers for La tana nell’abero by Cary Fagan. I really like working on small drawings, and sooner or later I would like to create a book in this way.
Here are chapter openers for La tana nell’albero, published by Bianconero Edizioni …
Working for such an important newspaper was a great opportunity. It was 2013, and I had just finished my studies. When the first commission arrived, I instantly forgot how to use a pencil. Fortunately, somehow, I got away with it. During the years of collaboration with The New York Times, I also made illustrations for the Book Review section where I had the opportunity to work on book reviews or excerpts of plots. It was my favorite thing.
(Click image to enlarge)
(Click image to enlarge)
(Click image to enlarge)
(Click image to enlarge)
In 2016, two friends — illustrators Daniele Castellano and Marco Bassi — and I founded the artistic collective Ufficio Misteri. We experiment through illustrations, workshops, sets, exhibitions, and installations. The project was born from the desire to collaborate and try to intertwine different signs, investigating the most mysterious aspects of drawing. We recently had an exhibition at the Galleria Portanova 12 in Bologna, the city where we live, based on an archive of memories of five subjects, including a robot and a cat.
Below are images from Nessuno si ricorda di Aldo Novak, an exhibition at the Portanova12 gallery in Bologna.
My mother is a retired kindergarten teacher, and for her workshops she used Munari’s and Lionni’s books, which are the first picture books that I remember from my childhood. I also had some nice editions of fairy tales illustrated by Tony Wolf and La famosa invasione degli orsi in Sicilia by Dino Buzzati, who is still one of my great authors of reference.
Growing up, I discovered the wonderful books of Edward Gorey, Victoria Chess, Tomi Ungerer, Remy Charlip, Arnold Lobel, André Francois, Dr. Seuss, Beni Montresor, Maurice Sendak, and Raymond Briggs. These are authors and artists who are a great source of inspiration and from which I learned a lot.
I also really like the books of Sergio Ruzzier, whom I’m lucky enough to know in person, and those by Jon Agee, Blexbolex, Kitty Crowther, and many others.
Because picture books are my passion, I’m working on a book I’m both writing and illustrating. It has to do with funny clothes and a child, I can’t say more! Below are some early images.
All images reproduced by permission of Bruno Zocca.
