ROCCO LOMBARDI

Rocco Lombardi was born in Formia in 1973. He completed technical studies and, after a past as a writer and cartoonist, he now devotes himself to illustration, long focusing his production on the crucial themes of landscape and the realms of nature. His works, executed with artisanal engraving and printing techniques, have appeared in numerous publications in Italy and abroad, on record covers and posters for groups in the independent scene. His publications include Annetta (NPE, 2009); Alberico (Giuda Edizioni, 2009); Campana, with Simone Lucciola (Giuda Edizioni, 2012); FieraNera (BluGallery, 2014); L’argine, with Marina Girardi (BeccoGiallo, 2016). He lives and works in the Bolognese Apennines, where he feeds his gaze every day and where land, water and sky still manage to break through the soul.

How important is the past for imagining and building the future?
The past lives in the form of a melancholy to be constantly processed, so something settles
always in the work that wants to project into the future, the deciphering of this past is never
immediate. So I would say that the past is always there even when one would not want to consider it.

What are the elements you would like to/and work on further?
A thorough knowledge of the anatomy of some animals to get inside them.

Tell me more about the work for Seminaria.
I’m working on it, I’m looking for a subject that puts together the support, the context, it’s a trace of the person to whom the work will be dedicated.

A project you haven’t been able to do, but would like to do?
A wordless picture book about the River.

Often in your panels the richness of illustration is well matched by the richness and complexity of a theme you hold dear, that of nature. Is this a deliberate matching gesture in your
drawing?
That richness always seems very difficult for me to portray, wanting to go into detail becomes at times a labyrinth from which I escape by projecting myself upward, holding complexity together also remains a practice that to pursue it requires a lot of effort, I often try to have as few elements as possible and that in that little is concentrated all the strength of the image and its source.

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