“(W)e are often encouraged to pay too much attention to someone else’s work.”

This simple statement helps explain why our cover artist, Francisco Miranda of Buenos Aires, is able to work across so many artistic genres.

And spectacularly so.

In addition to painting and illustration, Miranda is well accomplished in creative 3-D design and commercial art, having produced works for entities ranging from the Sharjah Art Museum in the United Arab Emirates, to Microsoft and Campari, to galleries throughout Argentina and the world, and even for reality show “Big Brother Argentina.”

As the son of an electromechanical engineer and a bohemian writer, he tends to approach his projects from a mathematical viewpoint. “There’s just something about the Spreadsheet, the process, the math behind it all,” he says.

His career began as a graphic designer. Miranda studied at the University of Buenos Aires, where he taught for seven years after receiving his degree. He also worked in design and illustration for several studios and advertising agencies, but ​soon began questioning his art. That led him to experiment with different materials and techniques, realizing, at some point, that he needed to evolve from two-dimensional art into disruptive “volumetric” works. Specialization in a single area of art is, he says, is limiting. ​

He takes his inspiration from “animals big and small, real and imaginary. In plants and insects. Heaven. Books. Ink. Inanimate objects. Machines and their gears. Taking apart and reassembling. Looking back and to the sides. Molecules, numbers, the abstract. Constant travelling. Being here and there at the same time. Planets. Experiments. The chemistry and physics. Infinity.”

Additional samples of Francisco Miranda’s work and contact information are at www.tooco.com.ar, www.franciscomiranda.com.ar, and www.facebook.com/tooco.