Tostoini
Roberta Ragona, known professionally and on social media as Tostoini, is an illustrator who describes herself as “soft but with sharp teeth”. She loves serious things done with lightness and light things done with total seriousness. She often draws peculiar animals and moves between visual worlds full of colour, curiosity and irony.
Roberta absorbs stimuli from every direction and filters them through her curious, anthropological gaze. She loves projects that require study and research, in which illustration becomes a tool for giving voice to stories and profound meanings.
The natural world is a constant source of inspiration, as are bizarre, curious or absurd stories, as long as they tell us something authentic about how we live and who we are.
“I really like illustration when it is, in some way, a form of translation between different languages, where the end result is more than the sum of its parts, where the visual communication says something that could not be said with words or other means of expression alone. It is an immediate way of expressing oneself and a very enjoyable activity where you think a lot with your hands.”
Bold colours, patterns and textures, sharp contours and graphic synthesis used as an expressive tool: this is Tostoini’s visual language.
Her imagery draws on the animal and plant world, Japanese iconography, ancient art and motifs from Sardinian material culture.
She does not define herself as a “refined” illustrator: her illustrations are conceived as they take shape, and can be ironic, instinctive and deeply human.
Her motto is:
“There is a lot about what is going on here that I don’t understand. But I am participating anyway.”
— Martha Wells, The Murderbot Diaries
Ph. credit: Cosimo Maffione
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