Rome-based Italian illustrator Onze has been publishing his illustrations since 1988. He developed his craft illustrating periodicals and book covers and this gave him a solid grounding in representing his figurative universe. He has worked with the Italian daily il manifesto since 1989 and since 2003 has illustrated the covers of the entire Contromano series for the Italian publishing house Laterza. He illustrated the special multimedia project Francesco Totti, King of Rome for the Italian daily la Repubblica, winning the Online News Association Journalism Award for 2017. His interest in illustration grew out of his fascination for the cinema posters of the past, which he began to observe as a child, when cinemas still screened vintage films from the 1950s and 1960s. Onze's fascination for Italian thrillers is derived from film posters because he was not old enough to see the actual films. For him the films existed only through those striking images. Then came the imperfect prints of Andy Warhol and the pop enamel of James Rosenquist, the covers of Interview Magazine by Richard Bernstein with the mega faces of the mega stars, the anatomical deformations wrought by Jean Paul Goude, the Italian magazine Frigidaire with Stefano Tamburini’s graphic design. Poster design is a recurring theme in Onze's work even when using digital techniques. Underneath their propaganda and celebratory poses Onze reveals a more organic and unstable side. Here landscapes are fluid and faces are built up with layers of paint.