Guspirus: Illustrations and Illustrated Objects

Vanessa Linares, known as Guspirus, was born in Barcelona in 1976. He studied Fine Arts and specialized in graphic design through an Erasmus scholarship in Manchester. After working in various companies, he began to exhibit his drawings, debuting in a bar in the Born in Barcelona.

Since then, Guspirus has shown his work in numerous galleries in Barcelona, including Espai B, Jordi Barnadas, Plom Gallery, and Diluvio Universal, as well as in Mataró, Havana, Singapore, Padua, Paris, and Hong Kong. His work is a mixture of tenderness and restlessness, with his characteristic large-eyed characters, the "guspirus", who populate his paintings and watercolours.

Guspirus works with a variety of techniques, from collage, acrylic, watercolor, and oil, to digital tools like Illustrator and Procreate, and ceramics. Currently, he is illustrating a children's story about the Guspirus and the African Ubuntu philosophy, while continuing to create utilitarian objects such as notebooks, bags and mugs. For Vanessa, painting and drawing are vital means of expression, through which she shares her emotions, ideas and learning, thus contributing to her community.