Gaia Alari is a visual artist, award winning illustrator and animation director based in Milan.

After her studies in Medicine, she pursued fine art as a self taught, mainly creating works on paper and sculptures.

From still images she shifted to moving image and video art. She specializes in complex, surreal straight ahead hand drawn animation on paper with charcoal and pastels creating deeply felt, hand-crafted narratives that transcend the boundaries between visual art, cinema, and editorial illustration.

Her technique-always analog and intimate-channels the affective power of imperfection, ritual, and rhythm.

With projects championed by The New York Times + The New York Times Magazine, MoMA, The New Yorker, Coldplay, Eric Clapton, Alessia Cara and awards from the Art Directors Club, ASME, SPD and Vimeo, she has established herself as a generational voice in image-making.

She is the writer and director of the short animated film “What comes at night”, pitched at the International Animation Festival of Annecy, produced by La Cellule Productions (France), with the support of the CNC- currently in its production stage.

She served as president of the Illustration category at the 105th ADC Awards. She lectured as guest artist at Yale, Parsons School of Design, MALCC London, Hochschule Luzern, FBAUL Lisbon.

She collaborates with brands (HOKA, Feudi di San Gregorio, Aritzia, Beats by Dre…) for commercial campaigns as an animation director and concept artist.