Engraver, cartoonist and illustrator Marco Toxico, born in the city of La Paz (Bolivia) in the early 1980s, studied graphic design and attended to the art department at the Universidad Mayor de San Andres. Feeling totally alien to the paradigms of Fine Arts, Marco frees himself from the weight in 2005. Together with Rafaela Rada, he begins to publish ‘Trazo Toxico‘ and gets involved in different editorial projects, as well as developing illustration works and posters for different events around the world. Marco Toxico is convinced of the power of independent publishing. In areas with a low reading culture and almost no institutional support, self-production is the option to develop. Marco has affirmed, in different interviews, the need for a self-editing circuit is fundamental: it not only guarantees control of the material by the artist, but also creative freedom and distribution and an effective education process through printed material. “It wouldn’t take a bit of a jerk to realize that there are no large publishing projects in Bolivia that can allow authors to live off their publications, this speaking on the literary theme, imagine what is the situation in the graphic narrative realm” he declared for “The Duty” (May, 2017)
When we come to the psychedelic approach in Marco‘s work, many visual and historical references are significant. Marco Toxico‘s work is characterized by the presence of anthropomorphic figures that inhabit areas only accessible through either in a dream experience or an altered mind state. The cartoonists of the legendary American ‘Raw‘ magazine or Roland Topor‘s irresistible visual allegories are close to the artist’s approach, as well as the infinite publication of superhero comics, TV cartoons and the off-set palettes of the legendary Novaro / Epucol magazines that educated all the kids of central and south America from the 60s through the 80s. Marco Toxico‘s work has been exhibited in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, USA, France, Hong Kong, Iran, Mexico, among other countries. His work as editor and author has also participated in numerous festivals both in Latin America and in Europe. Through editions La Natita has published ‘Esteril‘ (anthology) 2014, ‘Cobarde‘, 2015, ‘Fragil‘, 2016, and ‘Traidor‘, (anthology), 2017.
Leonardo Casas / TinyStar magazine, 2020
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