Javier Mariscal (1950)
Valencia
Valencia
Spontaneity, fluidity, and audacity. Mariscal recovers the story of an artist who invented himself. From Valencia to Barcelona, with his work always reflected by the Mediterranean Sea.
He began his creative activity in comics, telling stories that were like a diary of his own life in Barcelona. Social integration and at work were his main challenges there. “Historias de Garriris” (Stories of Garriris) became a work of great poetic and evocative strength, making the misery and vulgarity of the city an intrinsic, defining and emblematic feature.
But comics weren’t enough to satisfy Mariscal’s creative capacity: sculpture, painting, graphic design, cinema, fashion ... nothing is beyond his reach. His fresh and uninhibited imagery has made him a standard of modernity in post Franco Barcelona. His logos, posters and type styles are now icons for a whole generation. Influenced by the most varied figures in the world of Art, he has a special ability for fusing everything together and giving it his personal and unmistakable stamp. Mascots like Cobi for the Barcelona 92 Olympic Games or Twipsy for the World’s Fair in Hannover in 2000 have become landmarks of universal culture. All of his creations have a spontaneity that is more feigned than real, because behind his formal simplicity is hidden a profound investigative process. Only from an absolute knowledge of the product can creations like Mariscal’s be made. And this also contributes to his revitalization of the applied arts. Originality and utility are not at odds in his work, which is now legendary in the field of industrial design.
Mariscal’s feverish activity and his studio are already outstanding in the twenty-first century with works such as the reinterpretation of various twentieth century styles for the design of the Hotel Domine in Bilbao (2002), children’s stories (2004) or plastic furniture, also for children, that he introduced at the Milan Furniture Fair.
By his own merit, Mariscal is already a leader in the renovation of visual languages in the last few decades and one of the most unique figures among Spain’s most international artists.
He began his creative activity in comics, telling stories that were like a diary of his own life in Barcelona. Social integration and at work were his main challenges there. “Historias de Garriris” (Stories of Garriris) became a work of great poetic and evocative strength, making the misery and vulgarity of the city an intrinsic, defining and emblematic feature.
But comics weren’t enough to satisfy Mariscal’s creative capacity: sculpture, painting, graphic design, cinema, fashion ... nothing is beyond his reach. His fresh and uninhibited imagery has made him a standard of modernity in post Franco Barcelona. His logos, posters and type styles are now icons for a whole generation. Influenced by the most varied figures in the world of Art, he has a special ability for fusing everything together and giving it his personal and unmistakable stamp. Mascots like Cobi for the Barcelona 92 Olympic Games or Twipsy for the World’s Fair in Hannover in 2000 have become landmarks of universal culture. All of his creations have a spontaneity that is more feigned than real, because behind his formal simplicity is hidden a profound investigative process. Only from an absolute knowledge of the product can creations like Mariscal’s be made. And this also contributes to his revitalization of the applied arts. Originality and utility are not at odds in his work, which is now legendary in the field of industrial design.
Mariscal’s feverish activity and his studio are already outstanding in the twenty-first century with works such as the reinterpretation of various twentieth century styles for the design of the Hotel Domine in Bilbao (2002), children’s stories (2004) or plastic furniture, also for children, that he introduced at the Milan Furniture Fair.
By his own merit, Mariscal is already a leader in the renovation of visual languages in the last few decades and one of the most unique figures among Spain’s most international artists.