Sergio Furnari likes to think big. For the last 25 years, he has made a name for himself creating and displaying his giant works of art in public spaces.
“I believe in manifestation,” he said. “If you dream it, it will come true.”
His latest project, a nine-foot-tall metal statue of the soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo, was unveiled on Feb. 5 in Times Square to commemorate Mr. Ronaldo’s 40th birthday. The sculpture will tour the globe atop a 2022 Jeep Gladiator that Mr. Furnari painted red and green — the colors of the national flag in Portugal, where Mr. Ronaldo is from.
“I wanted to make a monument to him,” Mr. Furnari, 55, said. “He’s the best in the world, the Superman of life.”
Mr. Furnari, who hails from the Sicilian tile-making town of Caltagirone, first came to New York City in 1991 and made his living designing and installing elaborate hand-painted tile murals in luxury pools.
In 2001, he rolled out “Lunchtime Atop a Skyscraper,” a 40-foot sculptural version of the 1932 photo of 11 ironworkers suspended on an I-beam at Rockefeller Center. He mounted it on a pickup truck and displayed it at the site of the World Trade Center after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Mr. Furnari rents a tiny house with “a lot of charm” in Long Island City that was built in 1871. He lives with his 15-year-old daughter, Breeze.
NO ALARMS, PLEASE My Sundays are not much different from the rest of the days of the week. I generally get up between 9 and 10. I’ve never been a person to set an alarm clock unless I have some really important reason to be up by a certain time. I stay up pretty late on Saturday night — and every night — so I don’t wake up really early.
A SMOKE TO START My breakfast is a couple of Marlboros, and when I finish them, I get breakfast for Breeze. I’m not an American dad who gets up at 7 a.m. and starts making pancakes. But I’m like her servant, and I like to spoil her. She loves brioche, so I get her one at Santa Chiara Caffe, which is right by the water in Long Island City.
THE HEAVY LIFTING Most of the rest of the day, starting at about 11 a.m., I’m at my studio. It’s in an old Airstream trailer about a mile from my house. It’s from 1987, and I bought it in 2023. There’s always a bunch of people there — I have apprentices and a staff who help me — and Breeze has been coming to do things like painting.
People always think that artists have it easy, that we lie on the beach and make sketches, but my work is very physical. You have to have a strong body because we’re welding, mounting, mixing, cutting, cleaning, blending and retouching. It all comes down to shaping and reshaping. And I’m supervising people, so I have to explain to them what has to be done and watch over things because if there’s one little mistake, days of work go down the drain.
I also have to be very organized because my projects are big, and I tour with them. I have to coordinate things from places all over the world, so I’m always on the phone working on schedules.
CONNECTING I often visit my new art mentor, Robert Rogal, to get inspiration. His Long Island City gallery, RoGallery, is a place where you can literally breathe art and magic from Dalí to Picasso. It’s a real surreal atmosphere where every art piece has a story almost like a Hollywood movie.
IT ALL STARTS IN MY HEAD My process is simple. I don’t make sketches. My ideas start in a kind of A.I. in my head. I’m a deep thinker; I think several times a day, “What is life?” I visualize every project and think about it every minute, and I often wake up in the middle of the night thinking about it. Sometimes I make small models first, but in the case of the Ronaldo statue, I went directly to the nine-foot version.
I try to take breaks to eat, but I’m not usually successful. I’m done for the day when I cannot see or look any more, and my body says game over. When I was younger, I had a different life — I went to the beach, I rode my motorcycle — but now this, working on my art, is my life and I love it. Sometimes I dream about spending time in Guatemala or at my family’s summer home in Sicily. Or traveling around the world. But my art keeps calling me back.
TAKEOUT OR COOK IN By 8 p.m., I’m pretty much done for the day, and I go home to eat with Breeze. Once in a while I do cook — I’m Italian, after all — and I’ll make ravioli, eggs, salads, whatever I feel like and whatever Breeze wants. But more often than not, I get something that’s already made. Breeze likes burritos, so I frequently stop by the Mexican food truck on the way home.
CLOSING OUT THE DAY I go to bed at midnight, 1 a.m. or even 2 a.m. Whenever I’m exhausted, I lie down. I don’t read or watch movies — I make my own movies in a way because my life is my movie. And I sleep like a baby.
Sunday Routine readers can follow Sergio Furnari on Instagram @SergioFurnariArt.