While studying for his BA in Illustration at Kent Institute of Art and Design in 2000, Fernando Feijoo accidentally stumbled upon the possibilities of printmaking. He already had a habit of drawing with broad-tipped marker pens whose thick angled tips approximated a lino-cutting chisel, but suddenly a door opened. Feijoo quickly went on to become an artist printmaker, completing an MA in Fine Art Printmaking at Winchester College. Soon after, he became a technical assistant at Curwen Studios, respected fine art printers and publishers of artists’ books.
Feijoo is modestly amused when admirers of his prints liken them to an…
While studying for his BA in Illustration at Kent Institute of Art and Design in 2000, Fernando Feijoo accidentally stumbled upon the possibilities of printmaking. He already had a habit of drawing with broad-tipped marker pens whose thick angled tips approximated a lino-cutting chisel, but suddenly a door opened. Feijoo quickly went on to become an artist printmaker, completing an MA in Fine Art Printmaking at Winchester College. Soon after, he became a technical assistant at Curwen Studios, respected fine art printers and publishers of artists’ books.
Feijoo is modestly amused when admirers of his prints liken them to an adult version of the popular ‘Where’s Wally’ children’s books, but his prints, which are versatile and varied in subject matter and style, belong to a rather more elevated lineage. While some of Feijoo’s colourful urban scenes recall the New York cityscapes of Saul Steinberg (1914-1999), there is also a darker, grittier edge to much of his work.
His black and white Gangster series continues in the tradition of Frans Masereel (1889-1972), one of the 20th century’s finest woodcut illustrators, whose work Thomas Mann described as ‘silent film in black and white without titles’. Indeed Feijoo’s ‘Gangsters’ linocut series has a marked film noir quality, using plunging perspective and stark contrasts of light and shade to bring drama to the developing narrative.
Feijoo also makes his own fine art books, including a re-illustration of Hogarth’s ‘Rake’s Progress’ and ‘Harlot’s Progress’, both amusingly updated as social comments on aspects of 21st century mores, and he is currently working on a version of ‘Mariage à la Mode’.
’My work is normally sequentially narrative based,’ says Feijoo, ‘with underlying sub plots going on throughout the story. I want my viewers to be able to spot something new in my work each time they look at it. There are lots of deeper and darker meanings within my work than at first meet the eye.’
In 2006, Feijoo won the Gwen May Trust award from the Royal Society of Printmakers and more recently he won a competition to design a book of fables organised by the Fine Press Book Association.
Late 2007 saw Feijoo pick up the prize for the Tallinn Print Triennial with his ‘Alphabet Book’.
’I see myself as a journey man,’ says Feijoo, ‘travelling around and absorbing all the different cultural differences and architectural styles when I visit a new city, and exploring life and conditions of the twenty first century. These are then reflected throughout my work.’
