Ignacio Iturria was born in Montvideo, Uruguay in 1949. He suffered from asthma when he was a teenager and taught himself to paint as an escape from solitude. In 1976 he moved to Spain, just as the country was experiencing liberation from the Franco regime. Eventually, Spain got too hectic, as he put it, and in 1986 he moved back to Montevideo, where he still lives with his wife, Claudia and four children.

Over the past several years, as one of Latin America's foremost artists, Iturria has created his own whimsical world in which tiny humans and playful animals exist in surreal landscapes filled with sinks, bathtubs, toy soldiers, kitchen tables and cutlery. Iturria has an honest yet optimistic vi...