Javier Durá, currently a resident of Seville,
Spain, has spent his life straddling an ocean between two
worlds. Born in Chico, California, Dura spent his formative years in
Seville with long periods spent in Berkeley, California and Austin, Texas
pursuing a musical career. He is now straddling a different kind of divide,
focusing his creative energies on book illustration. In his first picture book
in collaboration with his mother, Natividad Osa, Javier has developed a series of charming and idiosyncratic characters
bursting with life that make their first appearance in Billy the Pig,
the Stinkiest Cowboy in Town, Stinky
Press, 2009.Durá’s illustrations
are truly stage sets, substantial, dimensional, full of colour, pattern and
texture, the illustrations resonate, matching the narrative with humour and
imagination.The mother and son
team have just finished their second picture book, “Granma’s Lost Her Head”,which is due out in August 2010.