EYE ON ART | The creative empathy of Fernando

Settled and a stickler for routine, Venezuelan illustrator Fernando Cobelo happily travels for fun and for work, but he loves coming back to his ‘home base’. Turin has given him stability and affection, opportunity and glory. His success is well-earned after a long, self-taught process. And his patience has paid off: today he’s one of the most-awarded illustrators in the world. thanks in part to his divine obsession with humanity.

By Roberta Busnelli

Fernando, ‘Fer’ to family and friends, came from afar to make his dream come true.  After graduating from architecture school in Venezuela, at 22 years old he left with a rucksack full of dreams, which he set down in front of the Polytechnic University of Turin, where he got his second degree. He was supposed to stay in Italy for just two years, but those two became 14, and he has no intention of leaving. His impressive career began here, and it’s here that he was able to dedicate his life to his one true love: drawing. ‘I’ve loved drawing since I was a boy’, he began. ‘In Venezuela there aren’t schools or academies. The job of illustrator isn’t even taken into consideration, like so many other creative professions. Drawing has always been part of me.’ A long time has passed since young Cobelo helped his sister and his friends with their creative homework, since he would draw his favourite cartoons, cut them out and play with them like puppets. But his youthful, spontaneous enthusiasm hasn’t changed a bit, the kind which is freed with others and which frees oneself. ‘I’m the type of person who gets emotional easily: anger, sadness, melancholy, nostalgia for the nice things of the past, but also of the present and future. This side of me helps me to create warm, empathetic stories, and it’s perhaps the thing I like most about my illustrations. It’s easy for me to express it.’

Cobelo spends his mornings at his desk cranking out emails and handling bureaucratic tasks, then in the afternoon he’s in the studio drawing rigorously with music in the background. He mixes the analogue, to which he reserves the creative part of the job, the construction of the illustration, with the digital, which he appreciates for its speed, fundamental if one is to reach peak productivity. ‘In my illustrations, there’s a very textural component, especially in terms of my characters, the backdrops, the surfaces. And those textures are mostly done by hand, with a pencil or ink on sheets of acetate or paper. Only at that point do I use digital tools. For me, it’s important that the texture really comes out well.’

And the colour palette? Cobelo smiles. “I began using colour late. At first it was all ink, black ink on white paper, at most grey sections, because I felt like colour wasn’t important. Or better yet, it was a sort of challenge, to be able to express a lot of concepts, even in depth, without using colour.” Instead, he used shapes and visual metaphors, an approach that he shares with his illustrator and artist muses: there’s Elisa Talentino (Italy), Moonassi (Korea), Pablo Amargo (Spain), Lora Lamm (Switzerland) and, in terms of historical figures, Depero and Matisse. Today, colour plays a part in Cobelo’s illustrations, as his audience and clients like it, but always used gracefully and with understatement. “My colour palette continues to be very limited”, he specified. “I use black and white contrasting with really bright colours. Yellow is my favourite. But there are never more than two or three tones per each illustration. That way, the work is much more graphic thanks to the contrast created by the juxtaposition of compositional elements.” Among them, Cobelo’s favourite is the human form, with its arms, hands and legs. Humanity is central in Fer’s work and life. His characters, with their excessive, unconventional and bizarre anatomy, really amuse him as they help him create ‘scenes’ that are much more dynamic and communicative in their gigantic gesturing. To Cobelo, it’s clear that form wins over colour. His creative process retraces the journals of Bruce Chatwin.

“My creativity is heavily based in research. I write notebooks on the topics that I have to illustrate, which I often know nothing about. I read, I get informed, but I have to write, in first person, the words that strike me if I’m to make them mine. Only by making them mine is it easy to turn them into sketches, into images.” But clear illustrations aren’t enough. First and foremost, they have to communicate (another keyword); they have to engage the viewer and the experience that Cobelo is visualising. “Creating an emotional bridge is a responsibility, but it’s essential’” he explained. Here Cobelo’s visual metaphors come into play, surreal situations in which the literal elements are replaced by figurative ones. The illustration becomes dream-like, an aspect which entices and draws in the viewer, physically and emotionally. “In my work, visual metaphors are a must-have tool for the creation of an original and empathic concept. That’s the only way that, looking at an image, everyone can imagine their own story.” And that’s what Fer is most interested in.

Whether it’s due to his emotionally engaging narratives, his quintessentially Turinese organisational skills, or even his obsession with goals, one thing is certain: Cobelo has come a long way, but he still has a long way to go. Victory belongs to those who stay human.

Fernando Cobelo is an illustrator who works with visual metaphors and essential images. His clients include: the New York Times, The New Yorker, the United Nations, Google, la Repubblica, Disney, Penguin/Random house, the Washington post, Vanity fair, Ted, Samsung, Zanichelli, Montblanc, Lavazza, Wired, Netflix, Kiehl’s, and Barilla. His work has been awarded by important institutions connected to the world of illustration, including American illustration, the society of illustrators of New York, the Associazione italiana Autori di Immagini (the Italian Association of Image Creators), and the Association of illustrators of the United Kingdom.