Roma Art: From Totti to Florenzi

The 25-year-old designer from Limerick in Ireland first created a Francesco Totti portrait in 2014 and since then has followed it up with further tributes to the Roma captain as well as more recent designs of Daniele De Rossi, Stephan El Shaarawy and Alesandro Florenzi.

“That Totti drawing with the boarder was my first Roma design and the Florenzi one is my latest, so you can see how my designs have evolved,” Masterson told asroma.com.

“I'm a huge football fan and an artist. I studied for a degree in Fine Art Printmaking after I finished college and I started looking at ways to incorporate football in to my studio practice, and maybe make a living from it eventually.

“Why I have I created Roma designs? Well, I'm a huge football fan, particularly Irish football. I detest the grotesque amounts of money in English football currently and have always been more drawn to foreign leagues like Serie A. Roma are one of the traditionally big clubs in Italy, with a great history, a great fan base and many famous players, plus I absolutely love the club colours. What's not to like?

“I generally only draw players I personally like - people like De Rossi and Totti are obviously huge icons with a great history at the club. Florenzi is someone who will likely have a similar standing in years to come while El Shaarawy could be a big player for Roma in the future, if he stays of course. He seems to have rediscovered the form we all know he's capable of and his best years are hopefully still ahead of him.”

Follow Barry on Twitter @BarryMasterson and on Instagram @barrymasterson.