Fran Matsumoto
Fran Matsumoto is a Japanese-Brazilian artist who hails from a small town in Brazil and lives in the big city of São Paulo. After studying Biology at the University of São Paulo, she followed her passion for illustration and attended Mimaster in Milan. Her first picture book, Tatá (Edições Barbatana, 2020), received the Award of Distinction from the Cátedra UNESCO de Leitura PUC-Rio and was distributed to riverside children in the Amazon region.
Memories are often a source of inspiration for her poignant and playful stories steeped in family lore. So are creatures and monsters! She’s currently working on a self-initiated picture book called You Are Not Going to Believe What I Saw about the importance of keeping secrets and preserving one’s own inner world. Fran is always looking for an opportunity to get her hands dirty, in particular with colored pencils and soft pastels. She enjoys going to museums and studying works by masters such as Toulouse-Lautrec, John Singer Sargent, and Mary Cassatt. Fran also loves the sea, a good “samba circle” and gohan with beans.
