Maria Giulia Chistolini’s comics of familliar scenarios are somewhere between silly and existential

Illustrator Maria Giulia Chistolini does one drawing every single day. “Sometimes I’m even forcing myself to do it”, she tells us, but it’s often where many of the ideas for her comics, posters and animations have their start. Her almost architectural plan of a vine of cherry tomatoes, for example, came out of an observation the illustrator had made of the fruits’ perfect geometry while cooking – something she did a quick napkin sketch of first before it evolved into a playful poster.

Maria has been drawn to things with the geometry and structure of those tomatoes recently, “maybe reflecting a more ‘rational’ or ‘grid-leaning’ phase of my life”, she says. Maria’s eye for graphic composition is something that comes through in her comics or animations: “I pay almost maniacal attention to balance, rhythm and how elements sit in the space,” she says. This has created a uniform style that strings all of her work together, no matter what format it ends up in.

As for the illustrator’s subjects, Giulia isn’t just drawn to everyday shapes but everyday scenarios too, ones that tend to present themselves to her in life’s quieter moments or reflections – like finding it altogether impossible to get to sleep. Her animation How Many Bananas quite hilariously depicts the existential dread that surfaces in a night of insomnia, when your brain fixates on questions you’ll never need to know the answers for – like how many bananas an orangutan needs to be happy – or when your mind treats you to a live replay of some of the most embarrassing moments of your life to so far. Her comic Not good enough, not bad enough also pulls from a similarly universal experience of storing leftovers in the fridge, knowing you won’t come back for more but waiting for them to go off until you can give yourself permission to bin them.

“I’m drawn to everyday situations that have a touch of surrealism,” she says. “It’s a space where I can explore both humour and deeper questions in a way that feels personal and expressive – where I can build a more sequential narrative that’s closer to a reflective chat with a friend or a conversation with my subconscious.”