Tony Futura
One of the most trending artists on Instagram, Tony Futura, a digital artist based in Berlin, likes simple motifs with a surprising twist.
Tony Futura is well known beyond the borders of Germany, on- and offline. He presented his art work in various places around the globe, from galleries in New York City and Italy to Museums in Peking and Germany and many national and international publications, blogs and magazines. Considered one of the founders of "New Pop", he places familiar images in a new context, creating surreal art to poke fun at the materialism and pop-culture focus of modern Western life. “I am creating simple images with a twist” the artist states in an interview with Coeval magazine. He says he wants to create more for the community than “#foodpord and #selfies” which the artist sees as boring narcissism in most cases. His artworks are deep, topical, and raw, alongside being highly entertaining and loveable. He is proof that the pen is mightier than the sword – in this case, the pen is a digital arsenal of weapons such as Adobe Photoshop. His work is designed to make you question modern society and materialism.
Still relatively new to the art-world, Tony works as a Creative Director at the advertising agency DOJO BERLIN whilst developing his visual concepts. One look at his work and you'll be right in thinking he is a pop culture reference expert. His light-hearted and funny digital art is often charged with political or sexual energy. Futura’s designs are colourful critiques of various social topics. Taking aim at modern consumerism, social media behaviour and the superficial fixation with personal image, Futura turns well-known icons into visual jokes. Futura’s pop culture illustrations are close to the nature of internet memes, in that they convey a simple idea in an often ridiculous and colourful way – but give it another moment’s thought and absorbing questions come to the fore.Part of his craft is the marriage between notable examples of fine art with an entirely 21st-century twist. The artist takes a cultural signifier of the Information Age and gives it new meaning – or in some cases, his artworks poke fun at the attitudes and relationships we form with the gadgets we run our lives with.
Tony studied communication design at the University of Potsdam and specializes in illustration, typography and graphic design. In 2013 he won the award “ADC Bronze innovative use of print” and in 2014 Top 7 Luerzer’s Student of the Year print. In an interview with Gestalten he says that the aim of his "creations has always been to challenge the assumptions.".
