Interview

Written By Editorial Team

Christian Luigi Russo

Christian Luigi Russo (also known as Nono Noire) is an Italian artist whose practice moves between figurative tradition and experimental innovation. Rooted in drawing- particularly graphite - his work expands into painting, poetry, design, and digital fabrication, unveiling the fragile dialogue between body, soul, and disappearance. Alongside his artistic research, Russo has worked in publishing and music publishing, with notable collaborations including Mondadori (cover art projects) and Emme Record Label (graphic production and development for music albums). He further refined his training with a course in Art Direction for Fashion at Central Saint Martins (London) and advanced publishing design at Feltrinelli Education (Milan). While completing his degree in Graphic Design, Russo studied 3D prototyping for jewelery design, deepening his understanding of 3D printing applied to the fashion industry.

This early experimentation anticipated his Master’s at IUAD Naples, where in 2020 he graduated with honours with a biomorphic 3D printing project in accessory design. He is now finishing a degree in Art Education and Cultural Mediation at the Naples Academy of Fine Arts, with a thesis on adolescence and artistic identity through Tsubasa Yamaguchi’s manga Blue Period. In 2024, he entered Italy’s first AFAM doctoral program in Innovation, Technologies and New Materials for Arts, with a project on memory, oblivion, and the dematerialisation of matter through 3D printing, scanning, and virtual reality. His works often emerge from hypnagogic visions and embrace shadow-like forms, searching for sincerity and nuance beyond the limits of language. Recently, he exhibited Sancta in the collective Ioⁿ (Naples, 2025), marking the beginning of a trajectory that bridges traditional drawing with the future of digital research.

What is your background and how did you start your journey in the art world?

“As part of my practice I also operate under the artistic name Nono Noire. Unlike many artists, I did not ‘grow up with a pencil in my hand.’ My path began as a teenager, when I wanted to be a photographer. This led me to art school, where I studied graphic design and photography—and where, almost by chance, I discovered drawing. It became the one activity I could devote myself to endlessly, side by side with music, which I was also studying through the violin. At first, I considered illustration and art criticism, but my trajectory shifted again when I encountered fashion design. Literature, particularly Ai Yazawa’s Paradise Kiss and Gokinjo Monogatari, deepened this fascination. Despite my family’s reservations, I pursued fashion indirectly through graphic design projects focused on branding, styling, and visual communication.

Eventually, I won a competition at IUAD Naples that granted me a scholarship in Accessory Design, where I specialised in shoes, bags, and small leather goods. My final project, centred on biomorphic design and 3D printing, earned the highest honours and gave me the chance to work closely with Andrew Charles, whose words remain deeply meaningful to me. Health challenges interrupted that path, but also redirected me toward teaching. A transformative experience in a fashion classroom revealed my passion for pedagogy. This led me to pursue a degree in Art Education and Cultural Mediation, where I am completing a thesis on adolescence, identity, and art, analysed through Tsubasa Yamaguchi’s manga Blue Period. Most recently, I entered Italy’s first AFAM doctoral program in Innovation, Technologies and New Materials for Arts. My project explores oblivion and the dematerialisation of matter through 3D printing, scanning, and virtual reality. My hybrid journey, spanning drawing, design, pedagogy, and technology, has become a resource, enabling me to weave together diverse fields into a singular artistic voice.”

What does your work aim to say? Does it comment on any current social or political issues?

“My work is primarily a deeply introspective practice. I engage in activism outside of my art, so my creations are not overtly political. Still, nothing can be separate from politics; my values and intersectionality inevitably shape what I draw or paint. Recurring themes include judgment, observation, the divine, and the relationship with the body, how it conforms, or resists conformity, within society. When I create fashion illustrations, the portrait is as central as the garment itself. In other words, I explore an almost human figure: recognisable in form yet never fully reaching humanity. It becomes an allegory of appearance, where Being consumes and surpasses seeming. I strive to strip the body of flesh to express the soul, to turn reflection into form. Disappearance - whether symbolically or materially enacted - is a constant in my practice. In the near future, I want to push further into this theme, to invite reflection on the vast emptiness we leave behind in today’s age of data.”

Do you plan your work in advance, or is it improvisation?

“For my most significant works, I begin with a sketch made in a state of half-sleep, a practice akin to certain surrealist experiences. In that liminal zone between waking and dreaming, aberrations and glimpses of vision appear in my field of sight. They are not hallucinations, but rather hypnagogic illusions. I capture them as best I can, sometimes just a few lines, other times a vision so clear that it allows for a detailed preparatory drawing to be revisited later in full consciousness. Even then, I try to let the work speak for itself, rather than imposing my intellect upon it. I feel I am uncovering worlds that already exist, not creating them by force. At times, I have been more ‘muscular’ in imposing my vision, but usually it is a dialogue between me and what emerges through pencil or paint. This is why both my drawing and painting often remain nebulous - the act is one of giving form to images that rise out of the fog of the subconscious. It is a dialectical duet between me and the medium I choose at that moment.”

Are there any art world trends are you following?

“I do not follow trends; for me, ‘art’ and ‘trend’ are almost opposing terms. Art, in my view, is not meant to chase fashion but to question what remains, what endures. Still, I do not live outside the present: I observe the subtle movements of our time. I see the renewed rise of figuration, which interests me because it mirrors my work on the almost human body. I am drawn to experiments that merge tradition and technology, as they resonate with my dialogue between drawing and 3D printing. I remain attentive to reflections on absence, on the ecology of data, on disappearance as an artistic gesture. Yet rather than ‘following’ a trend, I prefer to think of my work as carving out another dimension - not ephemeral but rooted in a temporality that longs to endure.”

What process, materials and techniques do you use to create your artwork?

“I work with multiple techniques. Although in the past two years I have focused heavily on graphite, my practice moves freely between watercolours, inks, gouache, colored pencils, soft pastels, and oil pastels. I use each medium in a way that both highlights its unique qualities and intensifies what I consider to be its most expressive traits. The more I progress, the more I realise how important texture and tactile sensation are to me - the physical feedback of the tool in my hand shapes the work itself. I do not favour the elasticity of canvas; I prefer rigid, steady supports. I love paper, especially preparing it in particular ways. Some works begin with treatments before I touch the surface: transparent grounds that let me modulate grain and layer, later enriched by different techniques. This layering is especially present in my mixed media pieces. I aim for a degree of sophistication where viewers often feel disoriented when encountering the work in person.

I have been told my drawings resemble analogue photographs, their passages of tone and color difficult to decode. This often arises from combinations: a colored ground in watercolour or ink, transparent or tinted grounds, and layers of both opaque and translucent media - watercolours, water-soluble crayons, oil pastels, pencils. Even the way I use graphite reflects this search. Beyond conventional pencils, I work with graphite blocks, sticks, loose powder, makeup brushes, sponges, solvents - constantly exploring new ways of handling a medium as direct as it is complex. For one large piece, I even used a paint roller as a blender, the kind normally reserved for walls. My own graphite-stained hands also become part of the process: I rarely clean the drawings, because those accidental traces are part of the dialogue I want to integrate into my research. In the end, I bring all my technical and theoretical knowledge into each piece, seeking to make them unmistakably personal and impossible to replicate.”

“I am drawn to experiments that merge tradition and technology, as they resonate with my dialogue between drawing and 3D printing. I remain attentive to reflections on absence, on the ecology of data, on disappearance as an artistic gesture.”

What does your art mean to you?

“For me, making art is an act of unveiling and a search for the Self. Jung often spoke of shadow work, and perhaps it is no coincidence that my most intimate and sincere works are in black and white - dark pieces that emerge from shadow. They are so heavy with darkness that much of my time is spent lowering the tone of the paper, letting shadow spread, so that light might have the chance to shine. If my art aims to be anything, it is sincere. Only in sincerity can I truly come into contact with myself - and, I hope, with others. I believe art is not meant to be formally understood, even though my work is not devoid of formality; it is meant to be felt. I also write poetry, play music, sing, and explore many forms of artistic expression, always searching for the intrinsic property of each medium - the thing that only that medium can give me. In Italian, poetry for me carries an indeterminacy that creates tensions within the text, impossible to express otherwise. In drawing, what I depict seeks to escape the constraints of language.

When I say that a work should leave one ‘speechless,’ I mean it literally - not from astonishment or grandeur, but from the impossibility of translating what is seen into constructed discourse. The same is true in music. My art is a world of nuances - always tending toward something else without fully becoming it, stretching the boundaries of language to create something unique, a space where I can truly be present in the work. This holds in both design and art: if I think of myself as part of the dialogic of immanence, of the objectification of subjectivity that creative work entails, the highest value is precisely that it is me who has made it, and not someone else. If I can fully describe a painting in words, then I have failed as a painter. If I can explain a shoe in words, then I have failed as a designer. Art, for me, is a process of acceptance and concretisation of the Self.”

What’s your favourite artwork and why?

“I have many paintings in my heart, but I remember crying after discovering ‘Jupiter and Io’ by Correggio. I think that the influence of that specific painting on my art is clear as day. There's a viciously captivating quality to it that really captivates me from within: the gesture of Zeus, the way he's represented as a cloud, the incredible mastery of Correggio in expressing the delicacy of air on skin. I feel like I could sense it on my own skin. I also have a soft spot for those kinds of body relationships in visual representation. I also studied extensively the work of Sascha Schneider: ‘Feeling of dependency’ is another huge influence in my art, and if you know that, I think that you could recognise it in the way I draw or paint bodies and the relationship they could have with their surroundings.”

Have you had any noteworthy exhibitions you'd like to share?

“One of my most meaningful experiences so far was participating in the collective exhibition Ioⁿ, where I presented Sancta (Naples, 2025). The work—a quite big drawing—allowed me to explore sacredness, fragility, and presence on a large scale, and to see how my practice resonated in dialogue with other artists. Coming from a background strongly rooted in design, most of my earlier experiences were connected to fairs and industry collaborations rather than exhibitions in the strict artistic sense. Entering the exhibition space as an artist, therefore, feels relatively new to me, even though I have studied curatorial practices and museology extensively during my latest degree in Art Education and Mediation. Looking ahead, I plan to expand my presence in this sphere, presenting both traditional drawings and experimental projects that bridge material and digital research. For me, exhibitions are not only a space of visibility but also of dialogue—where the work can encounter others and continue to transform.”

 
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