Le Immagini della Fantasia 43

Jesús Cisneros (Zaragoza, 1969) studied art history and illustration in Spain in his hometown. Drawing has been part of his life since childhood. He worked as a graphic designer for many years before devoting himself entirely to illustration, teaching and collaborating with institutions and independent groups.

As a co-author and author, he has published more than thirty books for children, young adults and adults, as well as art books. He has designed covers and collaborated on collective books for various publishers in Latin America and Europe. He has participated in collective and monographic exhibitions in galleries and museums in Spain, Mexico, Korea, France, Portugal, Turkey and Italy.

Some of his works have been selected for numerous international festivals, such as the Ilustrarte biennial in Lisbon and the BCBF in Bologna. Since 2013, he has combined illustration with a constant commitment to teaching, which has led him to conduct courses in numerous countries.

He lived in Mexico City for six years, where he was a visiting professor at Centro University and taught illustration and experimental illustration to students on the Bachelor’s Degree in Visual Communication.

He collaborated, as creator and teacher, in the creation of the Casa de Ilustración Narrativa [House of Narrative Illustration] diploma course at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Since 2016, he has been teaching illustration at the Stepan Zavrel Foundation’s International School of Illustration in Sarmede.

His working method is mainly manual, favouring exploration, intuition and experimentation through different painting techniques.

The exhibition documents Jesús Cisneros’ artistic research in the world of editorial illustration, as evidenced by his published and unpublished works, studies and notebooks. His extensive involvement in literature has led him to engage with sacred poetry, the classics, contemporary fiction and children’s literature.

At the same time, his desire for artistic experimentation has allowed him to explore the expressive potential of techniques, transforming and combining them.

A small preview of the works on display, starting with the book Llama de amor viva, an anthology of sacred poetry in which Nature plays a leading role, manifesting itself in seeds, flowers, trees and forests. Paesaggio con albero rosso (Landscape with Red Tree), the image of the exhibition, comes from this book, published in 2013.

The exhibition continues with interpretations of classics such as William Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” and illustrations from Paulo Coelho’s “The Alchemist”, as well as original works such as “Orfeo Lunar”. Also on display is his latest unpublished work: large paper panels painted in ink with enigmatic messages.

The song of a hope that grows and lights up the darkness guides our journey through the nature imagined by the artists on display.
The exhibition path, conceived as a continuous narrative, offers the opportunity to explore the dwellings of art and childhood, both deeply connected to nature.
Fairy tales, stories, and narratives become the space of transformation: more than one hundred and fifty illustrations, taken from around thirty books, invite us to enter the forest of images.

Nature and Hope

The first section embraces the promise of a kind nature that keeps evolving: in the works of Joanna Concejo, Anne Crausaz, Marc Martin, Éric Puybaret, Emily Sutton, Elisa Talentino, Octavie Wolters, the beauty manifests itself as the possibility of a transformation: from a walk around the forest of a dad with his son, to a pond that becomes lake, river, sea, until the renewed dawn and the song of the blackbird.

Nature and Childhood

The second section hosts the little protagonists of both new and ancient tales: girls and boys, ducklings and swans, toads, mice, snails, and, alongside them, a five-hundred-year-old oak tree, a vegetable garden, a garden and yet another garden.

Francesca Ballarini, Emma Giuliani, Jacques Goldstyn, Silvia Molteni, Arianna Papini guide us into the dwellings of childhood, illuminating places often forgotten, yet capable of returning with the same grace and tenderness as the images on display.

Nature and art

The third section brings together the experiences of Anna Benotto, Sarah Cheveau, Dinara Mirtalipova, Chen Wang all devoted to exploring the relationship between natural and artistic forms.
These may take the shape of tributes to artists of the past, as in the case of Karl Blossfeldt, of romantic memories translated into landscapes, of cultural identities expressed through signs and colors, or of ancient intertwines between forest woods and charcoal.

Nature and Science 

The fourth section hosts the beautiful discover of the world. The exceptional aesthetic and poetic quality of the illustrations created by Lena Anderson, Rossana Bossù, Manon Gauthier, Suzuko Momoyama, and Éric Puybaret tells of jellyfish blooms, whale breaths, ocean depths, cells and seeds, and the transformations of caterpillars into butterflies.

To the twenty illustrators, we offer our heartfelt gratitude for their indispensable contribution to the creation of this open space, as nature concerns us all, and illustration binds us to her.

It is a great opportunity to exhibit at the Casa della Fantasia eighteen original studies from Štěpán Zavřel’s first illustrated book, The Magic Fish.
We know from testimonies that the idea was born in Munich in 1964, during a meeting between the artist and his friend, the writer Mafra Gagliardi.

Štěpán Zavřel was staying in the German city to study scenic design at the Academy of Fine Arts.

The editorial project took shape at a time when major movements were emerging in Europe, considered foundational for the circulation of children’s literature and illustration.
The world of that era was an expanding horizon, crossed by trajectories of hope, one of which was that of Štěpán Zavřel.
In the pages of The Magic Fish, the need for an alliance between art and childhood is declared: art needs the gaze of girls and boys to remain alive; in turn, girls and boys learn happiness through art.
In 1964, Mafra Gagliardi and Štěpán Zavřel felt an urgent need to spread an unequivocal message, which found its ideal form in the illustrated book.
For this reason, The Magic Fish can also be considered a manifesto for the picture book.
The book was first published in Munich in 1966 by the publishing house Annette Betz Verlag.
It arrived in Italy in 2010 thanks to Bohem Press Italia, which republishes it today.

For the 43rd edition, the Štěpán Zavřel Foundation decided to expand the space dedicated to the International School of Illustration, doubling the number of places available through a selective admission process.

The illustrations on display, aligned with the exhibition theme, are the result of the work produced by the students during the summer workshops led by Jesús Cisneros and Joanna Concejo.