New York, New York! The city is doing us proud this week, with a third artist based in NYC joining the Memories project. At just 27, Mario Hugo is one of New York’s brightest creative stars. He illustrates using his incredible drawing skills, but also designs an array of websites for bands and fashion brands, art directs on various different projects and helps run an illustration and design agency. I spoke to him at the beginning of December and despite all this great work and his high profile, he’s a very humble and thoughtful guy. He has a very particular approach, in that he doesn’t like mixing handmade and digital elements – he keeps these aesthetics very separate, although he is comfortable with both.

Mario’s going to come up with something for the poem Swimming With Pink Dolphins and My Dead Mother by Patrick Woodcock, which is a very visual piece. Coincidentally, Patrick emailed me yesterday letting me know that his poetry book is the number one bestseller in poetry in Canada at the moment. Nice. Meanwhile, the work you see above is a detail from Mario’s work Severed Heads and the Celestial Sea, a personal piece done on vintage paper.

We are honoured to have Mario onboard, and suggest you check out his personal portfolio here, and his agency Hugo & Marie’s website here. We ‘heart’ New York.