With a career as an illustrator spanning over 40 years, Guido began to explore and experiment with body art and using the human body as a canvas in 1990. Gradually, he perfected the art of making his models contort their bodies into specific positions and using his painting skills to turn them into realistic portraits and scenes.

 

In 2000, an art director asked him if he could paint animals on people's hands without using photoshop. "After I tried doing it, I was the first one to be positively¹ surprised with the beautiful result," he said. "I did not know that a great artist from Florence, Mario Mariotti, did the same artistic² research before me. From 2000 onwards, I began my research on the 'Handimals'".

 

That same year, Guido released his world-famous 'Handimals' series, consisting of 77 highly detailed³ animals painted onto hands that were twisted and manipulated into various positions to form beaks⁴, trunks, feathers, and more.

 

Guido believes that his work is so well received because hands – after the face – are the most expressive⁵ part of the body. "So seeing hands transforming into so many different things, such as animals or natural environments, is something that surely fascinates people, both children and adults. I just look at my hands and try to imagine all different things and animals they could turn into."

 

Guido revealed that he wanted to be an artist ever since elementary school. "I was only five years old when my teacher asked me to make a greeting card for the headmaster," he recalled fondly. "It was obvious that I was the most creative and artistic child in the whole school, so after that episode all my classmates began to ask me to do their drawings and caricatures."

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