Júlia Sardà Portabella

In the realm of contemporary illustration, few artists possess Júlia Sardà Portabella’s singular ability to transmute whimsy into profundity. The Catalan illustrator, whose debut picture book The Liszts (2016) sparked international acclaim, crafts worlds where Gothic melancholy dances with surreal humor—a visual language that feels both timeless and unsettlingly fresh.

Sardà’s process is an exercise in intuitive archaeology. For The Liszts—Kyo Maclear’s tale of a list-obsessed family—she began by sketching characters “without constraints,” allowing their idiosyncrasies to emerge through pencil strokes. “If I capture their standing plain characters,” she explains, “the atmosphere follows.” Her Liszts embody anachronistic elegance: Eastern European silhouettes draped in Victorian textures, existing outside temporal logic yet vibrating with emotional truth. This approach reflects her core philosophy: illustration should “continue the writer’s story,” adding layers of meaning through visual metaphor.

Her technical mastery is equally distinctive. Rejecting digital perfectionism, Sardà employs traditional mediums to build tactile richness—layers of gouache and pencil creating depths that pixel-perfect rendering cannot replicate. Yet she remains refreshingly candid about challenges: typography, she admits, is a “pending subject,” often resolved through inspired “borrowing” from other artists.

What sets Sardà apart is her reverence for ambiguity. Whether depicting a listless Sunday or a mysterious visitor (the narrative heart of The Liszts), she invites viewers to inhabit liminal spaces where the uncanny feels like home. This talent extends beyond children’s literature; her upcoming biography of Mary Shelley promises “watercolor stains and blurry black atmospheres”—a fitting homage to another pioneer of dark imagination.

In an industry often prioritizing trend over substance, Sardà stands as a testament to slow, intuitive creation. As she prepares to explore Shelley’s legacy, one truth endures: her work proves that the most enduring magic lies not in answers, but in questions whispered through brushstrokes.