Yassen Grigorov

This children’s tale by the famous writer Julio Cortázar is a text that has always been published with the original illustrations; here, it is illustrated by a new artist for the first time. It is fortunate that this poetic book fell into the hands of a sensitive artist like Yassen Grigorov, who masterfully makes use of the language of metaphor, quotation, the richness of textures, and spatial hierarchy and cross-sections, thus ensuring a fantastic communication of the drawing with the text. In the form of a square book, the artist builds panoramas on each folio, developing an impressive architecture of the images, and especially the close-ups. The bear crawls through the pipes of the buildings and peeks out from the residents’ fountains with a wet muzzle, “stroking their cheeks and licking their noses.” When he is happy, he does a dance, a reference to the painting by the French artist Matisse. And when he leaves satisfied, knowing that he has done the right thing, he flies up with the stars into the galaxy. Yassen Grigorov is a virtuoso in every small detail, without flaunting his ability to depict literally every object and situation. Everything is subordinated to the small pieces of text on each page, until the very end. The digital technology is perceived very naturally; the artist uses technological capabilities to build a realistic masterful texture, as if it had been accomplished through analogue means.