GIANCARLO DE ASTIS

BIOGRAPHY:

As an artist and furniture designer, De Astis pays homage to the numerous man-hours spent by others in creating these fantastic pieces of metal, creatively transforming each part into a new work of art. In his studio, he harmonizes the metal with new materials-glass, wood, stone, leather, metal sheeting, rivets-which results in impressive, highly crafted pieces of functional furniture, including chairs, desks, lamps, tables, and other pieces for the home, office and even public spaces. Aerodynamic and powerful in design, these unique objects reflect the creative mind and boundless energy of the artist and designer.

Giancarlo de Astis grew up in various countries around the world--Mexico, United States, Italy, Venezuela, Tunisia and Australia. As a result of his extensive travels and experiences with diverse cultures, he is fluent in English, Spanish, Italian and French. As a teenager, he attended schools in Florence and Rome, receiving a liberal arts education and exposure to monuments of Western art and architectural history on a daily basis. He graduated Cum Laude from Tufts University in Boston with a degree in International Relations and Economics.

In 2001, a series of dramatic changes in his personal life led De Astis to pursue a longtime dream of designing and building hand crafted furniture using parts from old airplanes. He traveled throughout the Southwest, West and Northwest regions of the United States for eight weeks in a VW camper, making a seminal stop in Arizona to visit the junkyards where planes await their meltdown. He purchased a number of parts and rented a U-Haul truck to bring them back to Los Angeles. Even prior to this moment, he had already begun sketching ideas for furniture. His first inspiration emanated from an airplane ride over the Mojave Desert in 1995, when for the first time he witnessed the "bone yards" where hundreds of airplanes--row by row--are laid to rest.

INSPIRATION:

For Giancarlo De Astis earning his Artistic license starts in the American West, where millions of creative man-hours are already embedded in the shapes of tens of thousands of airplanes glimmering under intense heat.

"When I toured the area in Mojave where the airplanes are parked, I began to notice the shapes and curves of the aircraft. They moved me. The parts and pieces of the planes were beautiful in and of themselves"
Inspired to perpetuate their existence as the works of art they are; Giancarlo blends the splendor of each part with time-honored crafting materials.

In the studio he refines his visualization of the finished piece, chooses harmonizing materials and begins to craft, and so the metamorphosis begins.
During this inventive process a mixture occurs that renews the part as a distinct and functional furniture piece- transformed, the airplane part then survives with fresh purpose. Resulting in extraordinary works of aviation art!

"It's not so much about me it's the piece itself". "I often wondered what it is that makes people still line up to see a painting that was done 500 years ago, I decided it was because the artist had left a piece of himself there and it's the passion of that person - Picasso, Rembrandt and Renoir - that keeps drawing us back. The moment that you touch somebody emotionally, that's the moment. That's what I try to do with my furniture."

PILOT - O

“Like the stories of our lives, the contrails of an aircraft move forward, reflecting on our past, rejoicing in our present and pointing to our future. Flight is the journey of life. With my work, I wish that the essence of the human soul materializes through the metaphor of flight.”

About the Artist:

PilotO, is a unique aviation artist, with a piloting, strong science and business background. PilotO reconnected with his childhood passion for drawing and painting after more than twenty years involved in the aviation and aerospace industries as an engineering student, airline transport pilot flying Boeing 747’s worldwide and also as a successful international executive and consultant.  IFS exclusively represents PilotO’s work  and collectors are deeply touched by his unique, simple, yet powerful paintings, painted model aircraft and aircraft three dimensional collage compositions and assemblages.

PilotO’s aerospace bound life story details are intriguing and engaging. Starting his craft at a very early age, he was known for selling self-adhesive photo collages to his peers in primary schools to decorate their school books, motor scooters and even room wallpapers. Model airplanes, sketches and early day canvases, often given as gifts to aspiring aviators and charities are scattered around the world.

PilotO’s is an early “mature” artist, in his early forties. His life career makes some of his work’s details and “style context” accurate yet simple and inspired.  His work exudes the soul of one who, flying around the world for years, has been impregnated and fascinated with the views outside “cockpit” windows. PilotO innocently and with simple, sometimes “child like”  naïve elegance re creates the drama and the “spectacle” of the sky as a magnificent  gate to mankind’s universes of dreams and passions……..both known and familiar yet unknown and mysterious.

His work’s statement are subtle, poetic, yet swift and dynamic as the images he must have seen and emotions  felt through the cumulative hours, days or even years spent aloft.