Comic Bar: Judith Vanistendael mit „Atan von den Kykladen“

"I often see a whole world in a stone." Atan lives about four thousand five hundred years ago on the Cyclades, a group of Greek islands. The quiet, introverted boy has an extraordinary talent for modeling clay and creates mythological figures that are destined to outlast the millennia and eventually end up in the Louvre in Paris.

His parents realize early on that Atan cannot live without his art and send him to the island of Naxos, where he is trained as a marble sculptor. But there he is forced to give up his creativity and concentrate on skill and technique instead - until his teacher realizes that he must not restrict his pupil's artistic development.

Judith Vanistendael was inspired by a small Cycladic statue in the Louvre in Paris for her latest book "Atan von den Kykladen" (Reprodukt). Atan's development is not only that of an artist exploring his craft, but also that of a young person finding his place in the world. "Atan of the Cyclades" proves once again that Judith Vanistendael is an incomparable storyteller.

Judith Vanistendael, born in 1974 in Leuven, Belgium, studied art in Berlin, Ghent and Seville and picture storytelling at the Sint-Lukas School of Art in Brussels. She now works there as a lecturer herself. The multi-award-winning comic author has created internationally acclaimed graphic novels such as "Penelope's Two Lives" (2019) and "When David Lost His Voice" (2012).