The first official artwork I did with my Dad!

My father, Philippe Zanolino, is also an artist. A prolific one at that. I could write a book about him, and most probably will one day. For now, I'll keep it at, he is an artist "pur sang".

Any time he had, he would spend it in the Atelier, I've never seen another artist work as hard and tirelessly as him. Wherever we lived was always filled to the brim with art. My Dad was so good at what he did, that I never even considered going into the arts myself. However, throughout my childhood I was playing around in his atelier, having fun with the materials and watching him paint and sculpt for years and years.

After my first year of studying in Netherlands, I wanted to switch to graphic design. I made my portfolio and started to notice that I had the same touch my Dad has. I ended up choosing for fine arts instead. After about a year and a half abroad, I surprised my father by flying in for his birthday. I had made a mixed media spray paint and collage piece for one of my assignments at the academy. The story line reminded me so much of my Dad's story that I gifted it to him for his birthday. Now here's where it gets interesting.

The next day when I came to visit my dad again, he looks at me a little worried and says, "son, I'm sorry, but I worked on the gift you gave me" I enter the atelier and see he added a section of acrylic paint! I was flabbergasted by how that move made the work pop! So I was very pleased! I showed him some of the other works I brought along and we upgraded/completed 3 more together during that vacation. In the following visits back home from Europe, we would complete many more works together. When I eventually moved back, we had a solid 2 year collaboration culminating in a joint-show with over 200 pieces in our national museum.

Our collaboration works are signed Zz-team and I hope to be sharing some of these works alongside my own on Steemit.

Now that you know a little bit of the backstory, here's the first official Zz-team work we made in 2006 called "Creation"

Part of our show

Philippe Zanolino & Giovani Zanolino a.k.a Zz-team

Thank you so much for taking the time to go through this post.

I love hearing from you and really do appreciate the support!

Amor I luz,