Michael Pantuso

Bio:

Michael Pantuso is a Graphic Designer, Illustrator, and Artist living just outside of Chicago. He is the founder of STUDIA, a brand design collective of... highly accomplished designers, writers, creators and marketers. In brand design, his work is highly strategic and carefully planned, built on the mantra that design is the amplification of an idea built on strategy.  In fine art, however, Pantuso works in a completely different way. There is no formula and no master plan. A painting or digital piece starts with the beginnings of an idea. From there, the work takes its own course. Pantuso explores, expands, reacts, and modifies. Nothing is fixed. Everything is subject to change. His process is a physical act of creation, destruction and rebuilding until something honest emerges. For Pantuso, it's not about technique for technique sake. It’s about discovery. He works quickly, not out of carelessness but to prevent hesitation and doubt from destroying his energy. For Pantuso, art is not decoration. It’s expression, invention, and the search for another way of seeing. His work often explores the blending of nature, mechanics, and human experience. Embracing both traditional craftsmanship as a painter and digital innovation as a digital artist, he constructs visual anatomies that reveal the underlying structures of life, organic and the engineered. Pantuso's compositions reflect a fascination with dualities. Natural and mechanical. Instinct and design. Randomness and intention. At the core of this conceptual space is nature which is built on mechanical integrations—structures that function with organic logic. Insects like the planthopper bear natural gears that synchronize movement with remarkable efficiency. In Pantuso’s work, a flamingo becomes not only elegant but engineered, its posture a study in balance and mechanics. A swan embodies symmetry and motion, while a sea turtle’s shell reveals itself as armor, designed for endurance. Pantuso’s art does not simply imitate biomimicry. It surfaces the mechanical intelligence already present in nature. By translating these integrations, natural gears, joint mechanics, and structural rhythms, into layered visual forms, his work invites viewers to see the engineering embedded in every living system, and to reconsider the boundary between the mechanical and the human.Read More

Category:

Design

Company:

STUDIA Agency

Contact:

Awards:

GRAPHIS Design Annual 2025 | Gold Award “Madoura's Embrace” GRAPHIS Design Annual 2024 | Platinum Award “Chelsea Bee” GRAPHIS Design Annual 2023 | 2 Platinum Awards, 11... Gold Awards, “GRAPHIS Designers For Peace and Poster Awards” GRAPHIS Design Annual 2023 | Gold Award “Serpentine Swan” GRAPHIS Design Annual 2022 | Platinum Award “Rooster” GRAPHIS Design Annual 2021 | Platinum Award “Flamingo” GRAPHIS Design Annual 2021 | Gold Award “Ladybird” Siena Creative Photo Awards 2020 | Commended Award "VIOLA BELLA at MOMA Chicago" GRAPHIS Exhibition in San Francisco 2020 Award of Merit
Aug 2019
Spazio Tadini Museum in Milan, Italy GRAPHIS Design Annual 2020 | Platinum Award "Gulf of Mexico Series" Photography Annual 2019 | Gold Award "Viola Bella Pantuso | London Abby" GRAPHIS Design Annual 2019 | Platinum Award "EAGLE" GRAPHIS Design Annual 2019 | Gold Award "Vampire Squid" Discover Financial Presidents Award Nomination 2018
 GRAPHIS Master 2018
 SPARK Agency Award for Design 2018 GRAPHIS Design Annual 2018 | Platinum Award "CICADA" GRAPHIS Design Annual 2018 | Silver "FLY" LUMEN PRIZE Finalist 2017
 GRAPHIS Design Annual 2017 | Gold Award "OCTOPUS" GRAPHIS Design Annual 2016 | Gold Award
"Mechanical Mosquito Integration" LACDA (Los Angeles Center for Digital Art 2015
 Acquisitions of Fine Art Gallery 2015
 W3 AWARD 2014 | Silver Award “Website Branding”,
Silver Award “Website Self Promotion”, Silver Award “Website Visual Appeal”

 GRAPHIS Design Annual 2015 | Gold Award “Mechanical BEE Integration” GRAPHIS Design Annual 2015 | Gold Award "Mechanical SQUID Integration" The RX CLUB Silver Video Award 2012 “MERCK Infectious Disease Video (CAHG\TBWA Worldhealth Agency)”

 MM&M Award 2012 | Finalist “MERCK Infectious Disease Video (CAHG\TBWA Worldhealth Agency)”Read More