Giovanni Motta is an Italian painter and digital artist working within Neo-Pop Surrealism. At the center of his practice is JonnyBoy, a cartoon figure he created as an abstraction of childhood, which he renders across painting, sculpture, digital animation, and 3D-printed works to explore emotional memory.
His sculptural work grew out of Momonsters, resin and 3D-printed figures that began with two small sculptures, Blue Julian and Red Atomic, modeled by his sons and later reworked by Motta into large hand-finished forms built up over polystyrene or produced from 3D-scanned clay models. He has named Hieronymus Bosch, Takashi Murakami, Jeff Koons, Egon Schiele, and Hayao Miyazaki as influences on his work.
As a digital artist, Motta has released single-edition NFT works on SuperRare depicting JonnyBoy, including Alter Ego, I am the future, and GAME OVER.In 2024 he released AWAKEN, an edition of 69, through 6529's Meme Lab as part of a JonnyBoy collection.In 2022 Motta contributed a piece to The Laws of Adrenaline II, a sports NFT series centered on footballer Zlatan Ibrahimović and released on MakersPlace, alongside artists Davide Petraroli and Eskalator.His work has also appeared in group digital art exhibitions curated by Art Innovation Gallery, including a 2022 show on the LED screens of Piazza Gae Aulenti in Milan.In 2023 the gallery included his work in “The Sound of Pixels” in Hong Kong during Art Basel, alongside artists including XCopy, Dangiuz, and Trevor Jones.His paintings have also been sold at auction through Phillips in Hong Kong.
In 2025 Motta staged “Lost Paradise”, his first independent event, an immersive installation of fifteen acrylic-painted wooden JonnyBoy silhouettes exploring a post-apocalyptic world where youth survives as an act of rebellion.In 2026 he presented “HYDRON³”, a solo immersive exhibition at the Bagni Misteriosi space of Teatro Franco Parenti in Milan with a curatorial text by Ivan Quaroni, staged as the fictional launch of a substance promising eternal youth through nine paintings of JonnyBoy.
