Getting to Know Anabella López

March 19, 2014

Carol Bowditch learns about the art world in Argentina with the free-spirited, nature-loving creative, Anabella López.

I am Anabella López. I am an illustrator, graphic designer and also a dancer. I am from Buenos Aires, Argentina, but I moved to Brazil eight months ago. Now I am living in Porto de Galinhas, up to north to Brazil, next to Recife city. I love nature, music, travelling and meeting new cultures.

I started making art when I was a child. I used to do painting and drawing a lot. I got into differents art courses and it was there when I first got in touch with art. The same happened with dance, I started dancing when I was seven years old and since then I could never stop. I dance when I am painting, and I am painting when I am dancing. That mixture is my life. Without that I can not survive. It is my way to express myself, it is the way I breath.

When I was 18 years old I started studying graphic design in the University of Buenos Aires, where I also worked as a professor for a few years. There I first got in touch with books as objects. I started thinking about being an illustrator, and how it could be. Finally I decided to try and I illustrated my first own project, that fortunately was published in Argentina and Canada (Barbazul).

To me, nature is all we can know. Everything you can experience in this world is connected with nature, even man-made inventions, because we are part of the nature too. I try to show myself in my illustrations, from my point of view. So, I guess some of that appears in my illustrations.

I think it is important to talk about the matters you believe in, about the issues that concerns you in your work, so that is why nature is always a subject-matter for me. At the beginning of my career, I chose to show birds, plants, rivers, natural beauty in my images, even when the texts were not talking about that. That is the best thing about being an illustrator, you can add and choose things in the story. Now, publishers usually call me for projects that are related with legends and old tales, where the nature is the principal matter. That is really good.

I’m influenced by my professors, always. Everything I am is because of them, which makes me a very grateful person. Some of them: Claudia Legnazzi, Rebeca Luciani, Mariana Ruiz Johnson, Sabina Alvarez Schurmann, Vanina Starkoff, Carla Grosso, Laila Canteros, Silvia Musella and all my professors from the university.

Talking only about illustrators, I love the work of Roger Mello, Andres Sandoval, Sara Fanelli, Aurelia Fronty, Simone Rea, Suzy Lee, etc, etc. etc…

In the future, I am thinking about a project, mixing three different illustrator’s works. It would be an illustrated book, working with two other illustrators at the same time. It is just an idea for the future, but I would like to do it with Vanina Starkoff and Rebeca Luciani. I wish it could be possible!

I would like to finish some projects I have started in the past, as my book “Mundos”. Also I have some really good texts from other authors I would like to illustrate too. And finally I would like to taking some surfing classes in the ocean. After that… just holidays!