Leire Urbeltz

Invitado de Honor

She is a PhD candidate at the William A. Douglass Center for Basque Studies at the University of Nevada, Reno, USA; holds a master’s degree in research and creation in art, and a bachelor's degree in fine arts from the University of the Basque Country. She studied creative illustration and visual communication techniques at the EINA School, linked to the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), and a master’s degree in illustrated children's books at the Escuela i con i in Matadero-Madrid. She has participated in various international residencies, including at the Seoul Museum of Art-Nanji Residency (South Korea), the Centro Cultural El Paso del Norte in Ciudad Juárez (Mexico), and the Manga Art Studio in Beijing (China). She was an artist-in-residence at the Fundación BilbaoArte in 2012, won the first prize at the Encuentros Arte Joven de Navarra in 2015, and received grants from the Government of Navarra's Creation Aid in 2023 and 2016. In 2017, she received a Leonardo Grant for Researchers and Cultural Creators from the Fundación BBVA. She has held several solo exhibitions in El Paso (Texas), Bilbao, and Vitoria, and has participated in group exhibitions in Seoul, Barcelona, Madrid, Bilbao, Vitoria, Pamplona, Cáceres, Bradford, and Beijing. As an illustrator, she has published several children's and young adult books and designed the image for the Basque Book and Music Fair, among others. She has worked as a muralist for various institutions and urban art festivals. She was a member of the Department of Art Education at the Huarte Contemporary Art Center and an art mediator for the city council of Pamplona, Azkuna Zentroa, and the Communauté d’agglomération Pays Basque-Euskal Hirigune Elkargoa. She has worked as an associate professor at the Public University of Navarra, teaching art education in the primary education degree program.

María Luque

María Luque was born in Rosario and lives in Buenos Aires. Since 2005, she has exhibited her work in museums and galleries in Argentina, Chile, Peru, Mexico, and Spain. She works as an editorial illustrator and coordinates workshops. In 2011, she created the project “Merienda dibujo,” a series of meetings with artists. She is a co-founder of the Festival Furioso de Dibujo. She participated in “Informe, historieta argentina del siglo XXI,” published by Editorial Municipal de Rosario.

She is the author of La mano del pintor, a graphic novel about Cándido López (Sigilo, 2016; L'Agrume Éditions 2017; Lote 42 2019), Casa transparente (Sexto Piso, Premio Novela Gráfica Ciudades Iberoamericanas), Espuma (Galería Editorial, 2018), Noticias de pintores (Sigilo, 2019), and Corazón geométrico (Sigilo, 2022). In 2022, she received a Konex Award, Diploma of Merit in Humor and Comic.

Other activities involving the participant:

Networks between spaces and authors: The importance of the existence of projects that manage and accompany authors
#LeemosCómics con Ana Penyas y María Luque

Miguel Ramal

Invitado de Honor

(Alicante, 1994)

Illustrator and graphic designer educated at the Escola d’Art i Superior de Disseny de València (EASD Valencia) (2016-2021) and the Escola Superior de Artes e Design (ESAD Matosinhos) (2020). His work focuses on graphic communication and experimentation as a visual research tool. In recent years, he has done cultural projects involving different creative disciplines, combining with commercial work.

His work has been exhibited in countries like Portugal (2018, Sao Joao de Madeira), Italy (2019, Bologna), Argentina (2019, Buenos Aires), Uruguay (2021, Montevideo) and Spain (2018, Madrid), (2021, Vitoria), (2022, Valencia).