TONY LAURO

My fascination with automotive art and sculpture began while I was a design student at the Cleveland Institute of Art.

During my time in the program I ate, slept, and breathed all things cars. I was a man possessed, unrelenting in my obsession. I sketched cars seven days a week for at least 8 – 10 hours a day the entire year. In addition to perfecting my design skills, I tried to increase my knowledge and design vocabulary by immersing myself in anything automotive related. Techniques, motorsports, design icons, engineering, fabrication… everything!

It was during this time that I discovered a group of artists who were displaying automotive artwork at various concours d’elegance. I was immediately fascinated with the concept of creating artwork that could transcend the constraints that I was bound to as a design student. I soon found myself supplementing my design assignments with “creative breaks”. Stolen moments where I could relax by creating automotive artwork and sculpting the occasional speed form. It was addicting. My student work began to slip more into the creative art realm than the practical, surely affecting my chances of becoming a designer for the “Big Three”. It also probably didn’t help that all I ever talked about was Ferrari, Porsche and F1 in a corporate Detroit environment!