Luca Milloni

Italia

A hero from above

Feel the flower

Garibaldi

I don't want to see deaths anymore

Hello, my name is Luca Milloni, I’m 28 years old and I come from a little country based in Tuscany, Italy.

How I got into collages? Well, everything started in May 2021, when I decided to restyle my bedroom, I bought some prints from various artists I found on Instagram, those prints captured my attention because they were so cool, in their aesthetic they had a bit of unconventional elements to me.

The more I was watching them, the more I was thinking “Why I don’t try to make those things on my own?”

I started making them, I had bunch of magazines in my garage, they have been my first material source, everything is born in my little desk in my camera, with my little A4 cutting board, which (this is destiny) I bought several years before on a stationary shop, completely random, I thought “Mh, it can be useful someday”, I was right!

I started mixing those combined paper and glue things, and it started to make me satisfied, I was creating something artistic; people on my IG account seemed to like them, there was a little bit of encouragement, even between other artists that used to make collages as well.

I was pushing this thing so much! After a while, some several months, I said to myself “I want to do this for the rest of my life, I want to become a collage artist”, I know that the way is long, but you do everything, for the things you love!

I reveal the stars

I want to breathe your love

Mecha lord

Mecha young lord

Metamorphosis

Pioggia debole-Soft rain

Plant power

Nature call

The first element in most of my collages, I want to talk about, is butterflies; they give me a sense of deepness behind such little creature, beside the fact of its freedom meaning, to me.

I really enjoy making metamorphic creatures, I combine different types of element: part of the human body, insects, statues, flowers, and what comes out, it’s always something that I make for aesthetic or meaning; and in most of the collages from that series (Metamorphosis) you can see butterflies mostly; also, you can find those little winged creatures, in one of my series called “Blinded butterfly figure”.

This last series, concerns on making the subject represented in a blind way, like they are not intended on seeing something, which sometimes is represented on the landscapes I put inside them:

 One in particular, is called “I pray for not see deaths anymore”, where the main source is a painting of San Francesco holding a skull in his hands, looking up, and I put a landscape representing some ruins after a catastrophe, I made this in purpose, a man who is praying for not see death again, and so the butterfly put itself on his eyes.

Last installations I’m experimenting on, is transforming old portraits into a kind of “cyberpunk” subjects, putting elements that make them like human beings from the future.

That’s the cool thing I like about it, combining old and modern, I’ve always liked old and antique art, but I do enjoy modern and futuristic art as well, so I try to connect these things together, and another reason, is I try to make other ways to see things.

Another aspect of my works, is writing, it’s been almost one year since I started writing again, I used to do it several years ago, but without constancy; I think it’s a very good way on express yourself, and sometimes I collected stories from people I meet, to tell me something they want to talk about, and I transformed their stories into collages, in the way I felt them.

A few pieces I made, instead, were made by using a particular kind of perfumes from a really cool boutique, based in Italy: I smell them, with my eyes closed, maybe while listening to some music, then I wrote down a story, and I made a collage with what I wrote: essentially I represented the feelings and sensations that specific perfume gave me.

That’s linked with what I said before: there is not just one way on seeing things, I catch motivations from everything that makes me feel something: movies, art, music, books, nature, aesthetic, animals.

Talking about the technical part, everything I do is handmade, I like feel the quality of the paper I use, either they are more recent or old magazines/books; personally I prefer old papers, they have a better quality, I guarantee 100%!

I never printed something from the Internet; either for a satisfaction reason and for quality: you know, on Internet you can find every images you want, you just have to print it and that’s it! But, for me, it will never be replaceable with going outside and searching your materials into different places, feel the source itself, browse the books and magazines, and feel the smell of their pages!

All of this, is therapeutic for me(even simply cutting papers) it makes me calm and quiet in my mind, but at the same time, I am in my world, it makes me feel so powerful and full of energy, and that’s what I love to do: making, creating, exploring, express myself.