Where Form Finds Feeling: Mediolanum's Anatomy of Meaning

By @JustinWetch

"Give me two years."

Milan (aka Mediolanum) had just graduated college in 2021. A marketing job offer sat on the table. His friend looked at him with an expression of worry. "You know, eventually you have to get a real job. What's your plan for the future?"

Milan made the bet that would define everything.

"Give me two years. I'm gonna put everything into this art thing. If nothing comes out of it, then I'll attempt to go back into the real corporate world. But if in two years I'm able to make something of it, I'm gonna stay."

It's been four years. He's still here.

Early 2020. Milan was looking for a new way to create, when he realized his friend had Photoshop on his computer.  "Yo, can I use your computer and play around with Photoshop?" became Milan's regular request. His friend would shrug. "Yeah, man, go for it."

Milan discovered something revolutionary: "You don't have to be amazing at drawing to create something."

Photoshop rewired his entire understanding. He could collage, warp, and distort images. He took Yu-Gi-Oh cards and mashed them with Dragon Ball Z characters, playing with blending options  like a kid with finger paint. "I remember reaching the end and thinking, 'Wow, this is so cool.' Now looking back on it, I'm like, 'This is terrible.'"

But the sparks had hit.

He'd grown up on anime. Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, Neon Genesis Evangelion. Animation showed him "a more abstract way of portraying figures, emotions, experiences" compared to live action. Perfect Blue and Akira became aesthetic touchstones. Those bold colors and imaginative worlds would bleed into everything he'd create.

By late 2020, he was sharing other people's art on Instagram, thinking "other people should see this." Then the obvious hit him: Why don't I just create my own art?

COVID lockdowns meant time alone with his thoughts. No huge ambitions about becoming a successful artist. Just genuine passion and productive procrastination. "I figured maybe something might come out of it."

Milan is his real name. But online he needed something more.

He was reading about Leonardo da Vinci when he found it: Mediolanum, the ancient city where Milan, Italy now stands. Leonardo had lived there for a period. The connection clicked.

"I'm still not doxxed," Milan explains, "and I wanted a way to tie my artist name back to who I really am."

But it went deeper than geography. Leonardo wasn't just a painter. He was a polymath who saw anatomy, engineering, writing, and art as interconnected pursuits. Milan saw himself in that mirror. "To a certain extent I've wanted to model myself on that."

The 666 in his handle? Pure pragmatism. "The repetition of the numbers looked cool," he admits. Plus nobody else would use it, guaranteeing him the username. A bit of taboo duality next to an ancient name.

Milan doesn't just want to be a digital artist. He wants to be a Renaissance man. Fashion designer. Film director. Jewelry designer. Maybe even music. He cites Virgil Abloh as a modern inspiration, someone who refused the boundaries between creative fields.

 "Through the scope of art you can bring together fashion, music, film. Those are all things I would love to do in the future, and I think they will happen one way or another."

Milan's path to NFTs came from an unusual angle. While most artists discovered blockchain through art, he discovered art through blockchain.

Late 2019, he was that kid reading the Ethereum whitepaper with his high school friend. They'd geek out about decentralization and AI advancements.

"Blockchain technology, that makes sense. Decentralization, that makes sense."

Simultaneously, he was building friendships in Twitter's art community and credits the many early relationships he’s made to his friend ProviderKA. His friend Yosnier got accepted to SuperRare and kept him in the loop about artists minting on the blockchain. When Foundation launched as invite-only, Yosnier handed him a golden ticket.

Milan had already minted his first NFT on Rarible. "That's a crazy throwback," he laughs about those wild west days. But Foundation was different. That's where he'd find his voice.

He calls himself a "fake OG." Early enough to remember Rarible, late enough to have missed the very first wave. The perfect moment to arrive: understanding the tech but hungry to prove himself as an artist.

A year after those first Photoshop experiments, Milan minted "Martyrdom" on Foundation. Everything changed.

"That's when I started really developing the style, exploring anatomy and human nature."

The fascination came from two sources. Jean-Michel Basquiat famously studied Gray's Anatomy as reference. Leonardo da Vinci's anatomical drawings revealed the beauty in our inner architecture. Milan saw something others missed: in mainstream media, internal organs appear only in horror or medical contexts, "deathly or scary." But why?

"Our human nature is this crazy spectrum," Milan explains. "Being the kindest person in the world on one end and being able to commit atrocities on the other."

Anatomy became his language for exploring that spectrum. Universal because we all share the same structure. Visceral because it forces us to confront our physical reality. Beautiful because it's what we are beneath everything else.

Back to that pivotal conversation. Milan had options. His family didn't come from money. Traditional immigrant parents who valued security. The smart move was obvious: take the marketing job.

Milan went to his father, a man he describes as "exactly like Julius from Everybody Hates Chris".

"Hey, you know, I got offered this job. What do you think?"

His father looked at him: "Do what you want. If you don't wanna do it, don't do it."

Milan couldn't believe it. This wasn’t the response he thought he was going to get. "Okay, bet. Say less. I'm gonna do what I want."

The two years became four. The gamble paid off. His art has been displayed at Art Basel Miami, shown on Times Square billboards, exhibited in Japan and Italy. "What am I doing in Miami?" he still laughs, amazed at where art has taken him.

He thinks about the alternate timeline constantly. Would he be happier with the steady paycheck? "As amazing as being an artist is, you're constantly dealing with imposter syndrome, dealing with questions of financial security and always wondering about your future." He remembers watching Ethereum crash $2,000 on his birthday. "I'm like... 'Okay.' Like, I can't do anything about it."

But the fulfillment outweighs the uncertainty. "I don't think I would've met so many amazing people or had so many amazing experiences if I ended up not taking this path."

"I definitely come from the school of entropy."

Milan believes the universe is fundamentally random. No deeper meaning. No cosmic plan. Just chaotic conditions that happened to allow life. "These things that happen to you are just random."

Some might find that depressing. Milan finds it liberating. "In a way, believing it's random is empowering, because it means I get to decide the meaning."

This philosophy crystallized during what he carefully acknowledges as a psychedelic experience, one that created new neural pathways and perspectives. He's the fourth artist in this series to cite such a revelation, a twenty percent hit rate that makes us both laugh.

His masterwork "I'm Only Human" embodies this tension. An anatomical torso with organs, bones, and nervous system exposed, questions literally written into the artwork. What does it really mean to be human in a random universe?

Another piece, "Accepting All My Flaws," serves as his profile picture and philosophy: "To truly be a human being means to come to the acceptance that we're flawed. We're extremely imperfect. We're not deities."

Milan remembers an interaction in New York where @SamSpratt approached him and his friend to talk. The moment crystallized something Milan already believed: true success doesn't require losing yourself.

"I'm not Hollywood," he insists. "Like, you know how some people won't talk or they won't interact 'cause they feel like they're too cool? I'm not like that. I'll talk to anybody."

His circle reflects these values. Tjo "literally owns the NFT" of Milan's profile picture and remains a huge inspiration. Terrell Jones, a critically acclaimed artist, has been a close friend since day one. Luca Ponsato came in as an early collector and stayed as a supporter. TC consistently shows love.

Many collectors from the boom have left. These ones stayed. That means everything.

@mediolanum666 shouts out @0xTjo, @terrelldom, @LucaPonsatoArt , and @tinochchan for their ongoing support and friendship. He suggests interviewing @silky_sammy, @haydclay, and @danielkoeth for future episodes.

When asked about his father's current understanding of his career, Milan laughs: "I don't think my dad has any idea how I make money." Maybe it's better that way. For now.

The boy who couldn't draw became the artist who doesn't need to. The kid reading whitepapers became the creator questioning what makes us human. Give him two years, he said. He took four and built forever.

"I'm gonna do what I want."

He did.

Mediolanum was recommended by @adewalemayowa_.