On a recent trip to Turin, I happened upon a lovely restaurant called Boka, and became completely absorbed by the unusual artwork on display.

One of the owners noticed my interest and handed me a business card for the artist, Bisha art, the artists name is Pino Amato.

“I realized I wanted to be an artist when I was a kid, watching my dad create his collages, he had a great technique, I was hypnotized by that. I wanted to mix images in order to change the meaning of it and that’s what I do now.”

From Turin, Pino is a self-taught artist. By day he works at an IBM help desk, but he says he eats, sleeps and dreams about art, and at the moment has to balance work commitments with his passion for his art.

“Art is not always considered as important as new mobile or similar, that’s why a real artist is poor most of the time. I could live with art if I had the chance to build the studio I want, it’s a matter of time.”

Pino has had many exhibitions, such as the See-Me project in New York City (NYC) and the Louvre, he is currently a featured artist at MICA the Maryland Institute College of Art, and he has some  personal exhibitions such as at Boka in Turin and at the Fifty House Hotel in Milan.

“See-me was really cool, their project is to celebrate creators of art, any art. In NYC they exhibit all the works on a skyscraper. At the Louvre was the fifth annual Exposure Award, there I was selected with a few other artists. They had a special area inside the Louvre, it was really cool. The MICA institute was really a surprise. They simply contacted me and asked if I was ok to be exhibited permanently on their online gallery, amazing.”

Pino loves to exhibit his works in public places, such hotels or restaurant, where there’s a lot of people moving. He is most creative at night and in the afternoon.

“I hate the rain, the dark winter but sometime can be useful. I can work everywhere there is a good mood, where I can find aesthetic elements I recognize. Some idea need to be ripe as a fruit, some is ready made as soon as it comes in my mind and I see it real.”

“My style is fed by the world, the news, the people, I take my inspiration from what I see around me, that is creating a perpetual motion.”

Pino can work on a new idea for months or just a few hours, it depends how he is inspired.

“I’m really the bohemian artist cliché, I’m thinking about crowd funding. I need to have a real stable studio. I’m fighting with my living monthly. The Fifty House hotel chain in Milan commissioned me a job for a couple of hotels they have, plus I’m selling some works to people randomly. It takes a lot of effort and thinking to create art, even if I love it.”

www.bishadesign.com  to see more of his work