This morning, in the Reial Cercle Artistic of Barcelona, the presentation of the work that will illustrate the new poster of the 107th CSIO Barcelona, the oldest international sport competition of Spain, has taken place. After several decades during which the illustration of the poster was created from a photography, CSIO Barcelona decided to collaborate again with an artist for this project. For this edition, CSIO Barcelona counted on Conrad Roset a young Catalan illustrator.
The illustration drawn up in watercolor with the particular feminine and fresh color style of the author represents two concepts : in the foreground the figure of a jumping horse joined with some of the most emblematic elements of Barcelona such as the Sagrada Familia and the Columbus monument painted on the background.
Conrad Roset thanked the RCPB for awarding him this project, it was the first sport event on which the author worked, “I was very enthusiast about the challenge to capture the strength of the horse during the jump with my particular style”. “It is one of the most beautiful moments of the sport and it reflects the incredible emotional connection between the rider and the horse”.
Santiago Mercé CSIO Barcelona president was very satisfied with the work and thanked the support of the artist. “It’s a real pride to count on the collaboration of a young and renowned artist that has accepted to be part of the story of the CSIO thanks to this beautiful poster that we will see in few months in the streets of the city”
The presentation counted with the presence of Josep Félix Bentz, Reial Cercle Artístic president; Curro Espinós, RCPB president; Emilio Zegrí, RCPB Foundation president and Santiago Mercé, president of the CSIO Barcelona.
Conrad Roset’s biography
Conrad Roset was born in 1984 and he spent the first part of his life in Terrassa, close to Barcelona. Drawing has been his passion and a constant feature in his life, since he played with his brother at drawing all the things they liked when he was a child, until nowadays.
He received his formation first at the Joso School and then at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Barcelona. Thanks to the spreading of his illustrations through the Internet, he started working for the fashion brand Zara. A year later, he launched himself as a freelance illustrator, and since then he works for different international brands, advertising agencies, and publishing companies.
For the publishing industry, he has published two illustration books for children and he has also done some book covers and punctual illustrations for important publishing houses like Penguin Random House.
Conrad has always combined his work as an illustrator with the development of some different artistic and personal projects. During the last five years he has exhibited his work in galleries and museums, such as the MoMA in Virginia, Spoke Art in San Francisco, London Miles and Show Studio in London, Steven Kasher Gallery in New York, TiposInfames in Madrid, and Artevistas and Miscelanea in Barcelona.
In relation to the pedagogic field, he is a professor of illustration at the School of Design BAU and at the Academy of Art Barcelona. He occasionally teaches workshops in schools and galleries and he has also collaborate with de Faculty of Fine Arts in Barcelona.
The Muses are Conrad Roset’s most personal project as well as his work most renowned and widespread, the work that has marked and defined him the most as an artist. The Muses started in 2009 as sketches from life, stolen moments, intimate life caught unawares. The intimacy transmitted by these mysterious women who talk to us from their canvasses and pages is nothing but the same intimacy that the author puts in his work. Their self-controlled sensualities and their broken beauties exude expressivity and refer us to Conrad Roset’s referent, Egon Schiele.