Despite his pull, María Hesse (Huelva 1982 and Sevillana of adoption) Despolces the phone and answers from you to you, as if it did not just believe its impact that its work has or as if it were especially present that the success is ephemeral and the tastes of lector They come and go. This Saturday day 10 will be in the Bodega Queen roads (Sober) by the hand of the Agrasa Libraría of Monforte To present your latest book Fear. It is an event with limited capacity that fuses literature, art and wine.
Is it your first time in the Ribeira Sacra?
It will be my first time in that part of Galicia and the first time I make this most relaxed presentation format. The conduct thread is the book Fear But I want there to be a conversation with readers because I understand that the approach for this act is closer than a traditional presentation, it is a more intimate format, there are more barriers in the bookstore.
Fear It has been filming for a few months. What comes to readers?
It is a very good and also unexpected feedback, because this is a book that was not going to be a book. That is, I published illustrated biographies and feminist essays mainly, but Fear It was a job more focused on sheets and large format paintings. Then I saw him chances of comic and from there, also by the editor’s advice, he went to book.
The result is a very complete but also introspective book. Are your fears?
The result is a self -fiction book. Part of fears that I experienced, in which many people can be reflected, and from those fears a fiction story develops.
Are the illustrations of this work other than the above?
I would say that they are a bit more metaphorical than those of previous works. The book as a whole is more complex because it includes at the beginning of each chapter a story in pencil -made comic format. To the elderly, the images I created have a very high communicative level, that is, if someone wanted to follow the book without reading the text, they could do it.
Painter from childhood and takeoff with a biography of Frida Kahlo
He went to drawing classes since the age of six, his mother and his teacher knew that he would dedicate himself to this but you studied special education teaching.
I studied teaching because I could not enter Fine Arts. Already when I was preparing the magisterium oppositions I decided to leave them to pursue the higher degree of illustration.
EN 2016 Escribe and illustrates for lumen Frida Kahlo. A biography which became an editorial phenomenon, with more than 200,000 readers, numerous editions and translated into 16 languages. Was it expected?
I neither expected it nor the publisher. In addition, it was not the first illustrated biography of Frida that was made. But this is unpredictable and success was total. Nor do I know exactly the reason, if I knew the formula I would repeat it (laughs) but it went very well. Another that had a similar trajectory was that of Bad women (Lumen, 2022).
But María Hesse existed before Frida. What did he do?
Well try to look for my path and my hole in the world of illustration. He made sheets, sold them online, made illustrations of school books for Edelvis … what was coming out. Until Frida came, I knew little people but I also have to say that I have a followers on Instagram that are before Frida, that they saw me grow and supported me from the beginning and it is a pride to have them.
Illustrator and writer with an unmistakable personal style
Is it more illustrator or writer?
My origin is in the Enlightenment, I illustrate for me and for third parties. But, after writing several books, I like that I am also considered a writer. Live of illustration and writing.
María Hesse illustrates her books but also those of other authors. Does it look different in each case?
No. It is a different process because when I write the text I already know what I want to tell the drawing. When it is for others I like to talk to the author, if I can because sometimes they are illustrations of works whose authors died, but I like to see where they want to go, but they also carry or mark.
How would you define your style?
I prefer not to define it because sometimes I read that my style is naif and I do not see anything naif. I paint with Gouache that is high quality tempera.
What is María Hasse now?
On May 22 we published an enlightened edition of the Ana Frank’s diary And I am working on large format cadres related to Fear.
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