Elisa Cerri and Maurizio Santucci, aka Bomboland, are two illustrators who have worked with four hands since 2008. Their name derives from the “bumblebee”, one of the most important and useful pollinating insects for humans.
Bomboland’s works come out of the two-dimensionality of common illustrations, and result in a 3D deception thanks to skillful craftsmanship and a careful synthesis of the forms that underly their artistic practice. Maurizio is the hand that creates the design, Elisa the one that transforms it into a small bas-relief of paper, which is then photographed and digitally processed to become an illustration. Their imagery is fairytale, full of imaginary creatures and landscapes.
For L’Aquila, Bomboland presented the illustration “Walking with your head held high”. With the city behind, two boys in striped shirts stride down the street with a world map as a head that they hold in their hands, high above the clouds.
In the midst of bright colors, the illustration is full of shadows of the small paper cutouts glued and superimposed on each other. The border areas between the real object and the graphic thickness of the shapes give movement to the final image, as if our two boys could continue to walk with their heads held high even outside the white sheet, existing between fantasies of distant places to explore, check, redesign and remember.