Andrés López

This exhibition showcases illustrations created by Andrés López – the 2022 Mexican winner of the 12th International Bologna Children’s Book Fair-Fundación SM Award for Illustration – for his picturebook Volver a mirar.

The book was commissioned as part of the prize, established to discover talented under-35 illustrators featured in the Illustrators Exhibition, along with €15,000 in financial support via a cheque from the Fundación SM. 

The winner is asked to create a picturebook based on a classical tale or legend from his/her own country for publication by SM. That book is launched the following year at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair; the original illustrations are shown in a solo exhibition dedicated to the illustrator.

 The 2022’s Jury made of illustrators Gusti Rosemffet and Alessandro Sanna, and Pablo Núñez, Corporate Art Manager at SM, has unanimously decided to award the prize to Andrés López, for:

"the quality of the composition, the evocative representation of nature with a strong pictorial texture and a traditional style of great meticulousness in the treatment 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." 

Andrés López (1991) studied graphic design after an engineering degree. He has worked in companies such as EATON, Telefónica México, where he was part of the Telefónica Foundation supporting children with disabilities, and in Apple Education. Since 2016 he has been working independently in a studio he founded, dedicated to design and advertising, called MALECHO®. Andrés Lopez has won several awards including the Concurso Nacional de Cartel (2017) and the Catálogo de Ilustradores (2018) organized by the Mexican Ministry of Culture and, in 2022, the International Illustration Award Bologna Children's Book Fair-Fundación SM.