Fumanal’s
artistic training began at the Lleida Secondary School of Arts, where
he specialised in graphic and advertising design. He later moved to
Barcelona, where he worked as a graphic designer while extending his
studies in printing techniques and illustration. After collaborating
with a number of studios and art directors, he focused on producing
illustrations in varying media and formats. These include work for www.elmundo.es or magazines such as Dazed&Confused, German Glamour, El País/EP3, Marie Claire, Hercules, Metal, Apartamento, Wallpaper*, Nylon Guys, and a great many covers for literary review Leer .
His clients include the Barcelona City Council or fashion brands Pull& Bear and Mango (Fumanal developed an expanded dynamic illustration project used as a backdrop for Mango ’s Spring/Summer 2008 catwalk show).
During his period in Barcelona, Ricardo Fumanal managed the implementation of Arxiu_Dossiers ,
an innovative documentation centre focusing on the work of
contemporary artists selected by a committee of experts as being
representative of the city’s creative environment. The initiative was
hosted by the Santa Mònica Art Centre ( CASM ), which also commissioned a set of mural illustrations carried out on-site by the artist.
Ricardo
Fumanal’s interests range from photography for fashion and advertising
to the Fine Arts. Thus, his main professional activity as an
illustrator draws from a broad array of techniques and languages. His
current artistic outlook is expanding from the realm of manual drawing
(marker, pencil and ink on paper) into moving images.
Indeed,
his scope of action is located in a non-place where speed and
stillness exist side by side, implying that his current work arises from
a fragmented, multifaceted and versatile gaze. His images follow a
diagrammatic procedure that provides for their reinterpretation as
collage and subsequent analogical postproduction. His compositional
identity is thus defined by simplicity and a confrontation between
figures and background, resorting to a network of references, icons and
spontaneously topical items, all tangled with resources, recollections
and pre-generational links.
