Who are you and what do you do?

I am Mario Sughi also known as nerosunero, and I am an illustrator.

How do you work?

Our days all my works are digital works, created in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator using a Wacom Intuos 4 graphic tablet.

What’s your background?

Illustration and history

What’s integral to the work of an artist?

Patience.

What has been a seminal experience?

To leave home (Italy), and come to live in Ireland in 1988.

What art do you most identify with?

Pop art. English pop art to be more precise.

What work do you most enjoying doing?

When it’s time to draw some beautiful ordinary girls!

What’s your strongest memory of your childhood?

Eating grapes.

What’s your favourite art work?

Portraits of Federico da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino and of His Wife, Battista Sforza, by Piero della Francesca is one of my favourites. As for my own works I quite like that one that comes under the title of A couple with an attitude.

What’s your most embarrassing moment?

When it’s time to defend myself.

What jobs have you done other than being an artist?

To be honest I never introduce myself as an artist. Just an illustrator. I also worked in history and as a graphic technician for a company of archaeologists. When I was much younger I was driving a van for an art gallery.

Why art?

By chance. (though it is true that my father is an artist, Alberto Sughi, ...)

What food, drink, song inspires you?

Switch by Siouxsie Sioux.

What do you like about your work?

The playful aspect of most of my works.

What makes you angry?

Stupidity.

What research to you do?

I regularly go to arts gallery and read art books and magazines.

Name something you love, and why.

The sea. I like to walk by the sea. I do that every day.

Name something you don’t love, and why.

I don’t consumism. It takes too much space in our lifes.

What is your dream project?

An exhibition with very few works, each of them produced on a very large scale on the white walls of an empty gallery.

Favourite or most inspirational place?

I like Dublin. I like where I am. Once they asked Salvador Dali’ if he considered himself either a classic or a romantic. He answered: I am a classicos. And he went on like this: the romantics are here and they always wanted to be some where else. As the classics are here and they only want to be here. I am a los classicos, said that time Salvador Dali’.

Professionally, what’s your goal?

To create interesting works.

What wouldn’t you do without?

I couldn’t do without my graphic tablet, my books of Milan Kundera of Kafka and of Tolstoy.

Mario Sughi, 2011, Dublin

www.nerosunero.org