INTERNATIONAL AWARDFORILLUSTRATION BOLOGNA CHILDREN’SBOOKFAIRFUNDACIÓNSM Theprizesupporting newtalentsin illustration

The Winner 2022 Andr S L Pez

of details, and for the ability to create a very precise, believable and immersive world that gives rise to whoever looks at it to imagine it beyond the illustration and want to enter it.

FROM THE JURY REPORT

This award was created in 2009 by BCBF and Fundacion SM to discover, encourage and support new talent in illustration. The prize is reserved for those artists under 35 selected for the Illustrators Exhibition, and provides a grant to allow the artist to develop a picturebook, which is subsequently published by the Spanish publisher SM. The original illustrations of the book are also presented at the following edition of the Bologna Children’s Book Fair. This year’s fair presents the exhibitions of the 2022 winner: Andrés López (Mexico), on display at the Fair’s Services Centre.

Born in Mexico City, Andrés López has always had a profound interest in narration. Writing, drawing and creating opened up worlds he could then explore in books and notebooks.

After deciding engineering was not for him, Andrés studied design and then narrative illustration at the UNAM Faculty of Art, graduating in 2017. In the same year, he won the poster contest “Inviemos a Leer” of the Feria Internacional del Libro Infantil y Juvenil, and in 2018 the Catalogue Award of professional illustrators prize at the same fair. In 2018 and 2020, he submitted his work to SM’s Iberoamerican Competition and was selected on both occasions. His book Pantera was chosen as one of the 100 best books at the 2019 Bologna Children’s Book Fair, and in 2022 the illustrations of his Gigante en la orilla won the BCBF- Fundaciòn SM International Award for Illustration. His books have been released by various publishers in Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Italy, Brazil, Spain, United States, the Netherlands, China, South Korea and Belgium.

Volver a mirar: many years ago, there was a man with an immense curiosity about the sky. He spent a lot of time looking at it. He wanted the others to see what he saw, but they were always too busy to listen to him. In the end, the man gave up, his curiosity withered and he stopped looking at the sky, just like the others. One day, the man walked a lot and got lost. Suddenly, he saw before him a huge hole. From it came thousands of birds that filled the sky like a whirlwind of color. And everyone paused to look at them.

A story about the importance of staying curious about what surrounds us.