Justo Barboza

Justo Barboza is a visual artist, printmaker, illustrator and teacher who fuses the playful and the grotesque to evoke the world of show business with critical tenderness. He began his career as a teacher at the Faculty of Arts of the National University of San Juan before settling in Spain in 1977, where he has developed most of his career. From the late 1960s and early 1970s he exhibited widely in Argentina, at galleries such as Nexo and Lirolay and at the Centro Cultural Recoleta, as well as in national salons. In Spain he has held numerous solo and group shows in Madrid, Stockholm, Mexico and Ferrol, expressing his style in woodcuts, lithographs, metal and wood engravings, monotypes and collages. His graphic work is marked by lyrical lines on paper, combining woodcuts with monotypes made with stencils, brush and roller, creating narrative spaces where poetry converses with irony. For him, printmaking is a dynamic language that synthesises the visual with the symbolic. He has also worked in sculpture and in illustration for the press, books and literary magazines in Argentina and Spain, and has taken part in socially committed projects, such as illustrations for UNICEF and the Sahrawi cause. He has been part of artistic teams such as "Lado abierto" and has worked with writers such as Ricardo Piglia on artistic publications. His work has been shown at the Centro de Arte Moderno in Madrid, in Argentine museums and at international print and contemporary art fairs. He has donated part of his production and is recognised for his ethical and poetic view of everyday life. With a career of more than five decades, Justo Barboza has built a legacy connecting illustration, printmaking and sculpture, expressing the everyday through humour, memory and visual reflection.