SPEAKERS 2024

Alejandra Oviedo. She was born in Bogotá, Colombia. She is a visual artist, her work focuses on drawing and embroidering stories of her daily life, places, objects and people.  She has been very influenced by the culture of her country, its colours, textures, music, food and people. Embroidery has given her a lot, it taught her to be patient, to be able to express herself with threads, to meet new people, to meditate and to take time to take care of and discover her inner self.

She teaches illustration and embroidery at Casatinta, and experiments with materials other than thread, such as paper or metal. She also likes to draw in the sand and then erase it with her feet.
 

Andrea Ganuza, (Pamplona, 1988) His artistic practice focuses on graphic narrative and drawing, experimenting with the expansion of the limits of comic language and understanding it as a discipline of contemporary art. With a language close to poetry and a sharp humour, she uses her own experiences to pay attention to the axes that run through us: the social, the political and the emotional. Starting from the premise that drawing is a language and is therefore influenced by the context, Andrea is constantly looking for different ways of understanding the world. This curiosity has led her to travel the globe, thanks to grants and artist residencies.  Some of the places that have shaped her ways of doing are Barcelona, Bilbao, Bristol, Angoulême, Quebec, São Paulo and Medellín, where ‘Atrviésame’, her first graphic novel self-published in 2023.

She is training and work develop inside and outside the Academy, alternating her participation and teaching in official spaces and festivals related to counterculture, graphic art, fanzine and DIY.  Her drawings have been exhibited in spaces such as Museo Reina Sofía, CentroCentro or La Parcería (Madrid), Fundación Suñol, Galería Policroma (Barcelona), Azkuna Zentroa (Bilbao) and can be found in the collection of the Museo de Navarra. In addition to her individual artistic practice, she has initiated and participated in numerous collective projects such as the independent space La Zurda, PUMPK Festival de Autoedición de Pamplona/Iruña, the feminist collective NENAZAS or Tormenta in Medellín (Colombia). She currently lives and works in Pamplona.

Araiz Mesanza (b.1983) is a Basque illustrator, living and working in Oslo, Norway. She holds a BA in Fine Arts from the Basque University (Bilbao, Spain) and specialisation in Illustration at Escola Massana (Barcelona, Spain). And recently she has completed an MA in Graphic Design and Illustration at Oslo National Academy of the Arts (Oslo, Norway). Mesanza works as a freelance illustrator, with children’s books, editorial illustration, comics, and she has a special interest on self-publication and printed matter. Last year she founded Toki press a space to experiment with self-publication, with the borders between books and prints, what defines what, and how far she can push these borders. A place to explore comics, narratives, design and formats, limited only by her own experience.

Alejandro Moreno Marín studied industrial design and specialised in photography at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia (2016). He has edited books, made clothes, designed objects and painted streets. Everything that has occupied his time revolves around the narrative possibilities of the image and the exploration of media and materials. She has participated in group exhibitions in Bogotá and London (2016, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2023 and 2024) and solo exhibitions in Bogotá and Medellín (2023). His photographic work has been reviewed in editorial publications such as the Photographic Museum of Humanity (2019), Revue 6 mois (France, 2021) and Yogurt Magazine (Italy, 2020, 2021).

His current artistic work consists of creating works from textile materials. Through his work in photobook publishing, he has developed a special interest in the narratives that can be constructed through the interaction between the images and the material that supports them. Although the process of conceptualisation and the sketching methods he employs have much in common with traditional artistic practices such as drawing or painting, the use of techniques such as embroidery, weaving and patchwork imply specific possibilities determined by the material. Transitioning from paper fibres to textile fibres means being open to surprise, as the very nature of textiles conditions and determines the characteristics of the image.

His work is nourished by his sensitive experience; he does not look for outstanding events or issues, but rather explores the extraordinary in the everyday. His subjects of interest include religious iconography, material culture and popular graphic production. He finds in everyday materials and techniques an important input for the creation of his works, seeking to re-signify their artistic value and to propose new forms of application and interaction with them. By employing techniques traditionally associated with the home, such as embroidery and weaving, he aims to expand conventional narratives about these methods.

Bea Lema is an illustrator and comic book author who also uses embroidery and knitting as a medium to convey her images. Her work, generally autobiographical, deals with themes related to madness, trauma, family relationships, religion and popular rites. In 2018 she published “O Corpo de Cristo”, a work that won the 12th Castelao Prize from the Provincial Council of A Coruña and has also been published in France, Italy and Portugal this year. The project received a grant for a graphic novel residency at the Maison des Auteurs in 2022 thanks to Acción Cultural Española (AC/E) and the Cité internationale de la bande dessinée et de l'image, with the collaboration of the French Embassy in Spain. In 2024, he received the ‘Prix du poubique - France TV’ for this work at the Angoulême comic festival, a world-renowned event.

Elizabeth Builes was born in Medellín. She has dedicated herself to exploring nature through visual storytelling. In 2013, she won the Tragaluz Illustration Award and thanks to this recognition she participated in the book ‘Johnny and the Sea’, by the writer Melba Escobar, which was included in the International Youth Library in Munich, Germany. She has published in several publishing houses in Colombia and Latin America. Her assistants, Piñata and Carambolo, accompany her on long days of drawing and greet her when she comes home from running.

Martín Ramón is the director of Espacio Moebius and, in the past, of Moebius Liceo, a publishing house and gallery of comics and drawing. Since its beginnings in 2007, it has become a benchmark in the sector thanks to its work with artists such as Liniers, Isol, Carlos Nine, José Muñoz, Martín Pérez, María Luque, Gustavo Sala and Lucas Varela, among others. They have published works such as the magazine ‘Chikismiqui’ about the talent of young female artists from all over the world or the LGTBIQ+ anthology ‘Ábreme’, or fanzines printed by themselves by authors such as Powerpaola. 

In addition to having been the organiser of the Jornadas de Comics at the University of Palermo from 2014 to 2018, he was also the curator of La Revistería Cómics from 2017 to 2019, receiving the Eisner award for the best comic book shop in the world at San Diego Comic-con in 2019. He is also founder and coordinator of projects such as Tren Moebia and Radio Moebia, which he currently combines with his editorial and exhibition work.
 

Founded by Rina Zavagli, Galerie Martel was born in 2008 with the desire to support artists who share the same ambition: to explore new territories and break down the boundaries that separate various modes of expression (illustration, painting, comics, animation...). It is one of the very first galleries to assert the importance of comics and to promote them in its exhibitions as a full-fledged art form.

Concerned with representing the richness and diversity of graphic arts, Galerie Martel has supported internationally renowned artists such as Art Spiegelman, Robert Crumb, and Lorenzo Mattotti. However, it has also focused on giving a place to creators from all walks of life. By highlighting the works of pioneers such as Dominique Goblet, Anke Feuchtenberger, or Nina Bunjevac, as well as emerging talents like Emil Ferris, Brecht Evens, and Yann Kebbi, the gallery strives to cover a wide stylistic and narrative spectrum. These multiple collaborations have allowed it to develop a unique identity while strengthening the continuum of graphic arts by participating in creating a new horizon, free of all compartmentalization.
Since its creation, the gallery has participated in important art fairs such as Drawing Now and Art Paris in France. It has managed to stimulate the creativity of its artists by giving them the opportunity to renew their propositions.

Over the years, Galerie Martel has collaborated on projects developed by international museums such as the Centre Pompidou (France), the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Museo Santa Giulia di Brescia, the Palazzo Blue (Italy), and the Cartoon Museum Basel (Switzerland); as well as with various institutions: Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, the Bibliothèque publique d’information, the Cité internationale de la bande dessinée et de l’image d’Angoulême, and the Fondation Louis Vuitton. With an ever-stronger identity in the field of contemporary drawing, the gallery will inaugurate a new exhibition space in September 2024 in Brussels, a major capital of contemporary art.