Internationally recognized Colombian artist Daniel Liévano uses visual notations to explore philosophical ideas in Gravity & Other Substances, a picture book for teens and adults.
Through various media, artist Daniel Liévano has dedicated himself to exploring the relationship between abstraction and storytelling. Here, he takes up happiness, truth, memories, reality, dreams, and gravity. In many ways, these concepts shape the rhythms, experiences, and facts of human life. Conceiving of them as substances, Liévano explores them as if they were tangible, solid presences in our lives. In doing so, he makes happiness subject to gravity and memory both molecular and embodied.
The exploration that makes up Gravity & Other Substances is published under Unruly, Enchanted Lion's imprint of category-defying picture books for teens and adults. Daniel Liévano lives and works in his hometown of Bogotá, Colombia. Most of his time is devoted to developing highly conceptual images that accompany articles in publications such as The New Yorker, the Washington Post, the U.K.'s Sunday Times, and the Boston Globe. His work has received numerous recognitions, including the Gold Medal from the New York Society of Illustrators and the top prize in the U.K. Association of Illustrator's World Illustration Awards. Eugenia Mello is an illustrator, author, and art director from Buenos Aires, Argentina, based in Brooklyn, New York. She focuses on picture books and storytelling through rhythm, movement, and color. Her work has been recognized by the Society of Illustrators, Communication Arts, American Illustration, and the Art Directors Club (ADC) of New York. She teaches illustration at the School of Visual Arts and Queens College. Pablo Román is a translator and editor based in Choachi, Colombia. After obtaining a degree in philosophy and history, he began his work as a translator and interpreter, translating two English books into Spanish-Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things (1904) written by Lafcadio Hearn, and the unforgettable 14th-century mystical treatise The Cloud of Unknowing written by an anonymous English monk.
"This book is an artist's philosophical contemplation on happiness and dreams and gravity. It's visual notation for thinking through these concepts in both word and image. Think of it as an existential title with appeal to teens. It's about how to be a person in the world, presented with a fascinating approach to philosophical thinking through representation."
