Influenced by her graphic designer father, Cristina Portolano’s childhood was padded pencils, pens and markers. Naturally, she eventually studied art at the Academy of Fine Arts, Bologna, a city she had chosen on account of the Bolognese comics she enjoyed, printed by local publishing houses. Though her influences are varied – drawing inspiration from literature, cinema, painting, sculpture and photography – it was comic books that captured her attention in a particularly special way.

For Cristina, the narrative possibilities of comic books and their characters is a tool with which to understand reality on a deeper level. “The peculiarity of comics that has always fascinated me is how, through character and story they can create connections that give new meaning to reality,” she told Cluster, “you learn to understand it better, or even just relieve a sense of frustration with someone or something.”

For single illustrations, Cristina goes in free and easy, often drawing directly into digital. For longer, book-length comics, however, she always starts manually with paper, scripting the storyboard before refining the final drawings with ink. Next, she scans the paper and finalises her duotone colour palette digitally. “My colours are always digital,” she explains, “I work at home in a small space so with material colours, even if I love them, it would make too much noise.”

Through Cluster, Cristina hopes to make her work known to a new audience and participate in a stimulating, creative environment. “So far, I have been involved in many activities, and I would eventually like to take part in a residency.” She recently had an illustrated biography of Francis Bacon published by PRESTEL (penguin random house) and a graphic novel, Tettonica, released by Feltrinelli Comics. Currently, Crisitina continues to collaborate with the newspaper Internazionale kids and teaches at the ISART "F. Arcangeli" grammar art school and at IAAD (Institute of applied arts and design) in Bologna.

Similarly, Nick Prodromou has always had a keen interest in art. “I recall from an early age loving cartoons, paintings and graphic novels,” he told Cluster, “as I progressed through my teens, I knew I wanted to take this interest further but wasn’t quite sure on the specific path to take.” Nick eventually decided to undertake a foundation course in Graphic Design at Camberwell, UAL. It was there where he discovered the work of Saul Bass, Aaron Draplin, and Paul Rand and fell in love with the work of Basquiat and Keith Haring. “The more logos and brand identity I did, the more I wanted to let loose and paint. When I graduated I slowly introduced painting into my freelance career and I have been primarily painting since.”

Nick’s illustrations make use of universally recognised comic and cartoon characters like Homer Simpson and Spongebob in order to approach new subjects. It’s a technique borrowed from Pop art, a movement which he became increasingly interested in during his time at university. “I found that I could use a specific character to create a narrative and in turn, shine a perspective on the character that is at once completely new and universally relatable.” In one series, Under Pressure, for example, he focused on the mental health of popular characters. “I received many messages from people expressing their struggles,” he told us, “it was inspiring and I realised that my work could help people through the ups and downs of life.”

Both Cristina’s and Nick harness the universal in order to move beyond it; for Cristina, the comic book provides a reliable form to explore new narratives, while for Nick, well-known cartoon characters become cyphers from which to approach reality.