This Italian artist is no stranger to redesigning a cityscape with his two hands and a lot of paint. Luca Zamoc is doing murals, urban tapestries, but also edgy posters for international events. He not only discovered his talent from a young age, but his determination to be better than others in this field. At age 31, Luca has an impressive portfolio which will include too, thanks to the Unfinished Festival in Bucharest, a wall inspired by the Romanian history.

Were you that type of teenager with all the school notebooks decorated with skulls and wolves, skipping Painting classes because you had something better to do?

How did you get it?! My mom hated those skulls!

When did you cross from hobby to commercial? And which was the first brand you collaborated with?

I can say drawing was never a hobby, it was rather something that I needed to do, like dreaming or walking. When I went to art school I noticed that not so many people were good at drawing, actually, most of them didn’t even care about it,  and for me was a paradox. That’s when I understood that personally drawing is not just a mechanical act, but it casts its roots into something deeper than consciousness. That was very helpful to take directions and decisions: I knew I would forever draw. My first collaboration was with a pretty big Italian skateboard brand called “Bastard”. And guess what? I painted a skull!

You are doing a lot of street art – murals, urban tapestry – how would a perfect town look in your vision?

The perfect town has to sweat history from every brick. I love painting, I love walls but there’s nothing more attractive than ruins, ancient buildings and medieval churches. Street art is consolidating itself as a strong way of expression and it’s the best and cheapest way to retain 40 years of architectural hecatomb, I love when these two features collide. Paris is a perfect example of what I’m talking about.

Map of Giuggiolandia is a very introspective and sort of emotional project about friendship. Are your friends a source of inspiration for your characters in general? Or how do you create powerful facial and body expression?

Map of Giuggiolandia is the summary of 3 years of life spent in trains, cars and flights with the only purpose of meeting and making friends. Friendship is the best way to travel, travel is the best way to discover. I can totally affirm my friends are my greatest inspiration, but unfortunately none of them looks like Michelangelo’s figures, so in my works I took reference from the Renaissance paintings.

The best reaction you had regarding a mural in a random city.

Two of the best were in Swidnica (Poland) and Messina (Sicily). In Poland, a very old woman asked me in a totally aggressive way if I was trying to represent Lenin (!!!) just because the figure was bold.

In Sicily, I was representing the giant red dragon of Jason and the Argonauts, and another old woman asked: “Are they about to open a Chinese restaurant in here?”. 

Every artist signs his art. How do you mark yours? Is there a special symbol maybe not recognizable at first?

I’m a logo guy. I designed my own logo in high school (a very simple fusion between the letters L and Z) then I re-styled it in art school. It never changed ever since.

What should we expect from you at Unfinished Festival?

I love digging into myths and traditions, and the best thing about painting is that the more places you are invited to, the more incredible stories you discover. Romania, as an ex Dacian region, has loads of them, I can say it was pretty difficult to choose a favorite. During Unfinished I will pay homage to a great old story about Creation.

See Luca Zamoc’s site for more info on his work and background.