What words can't contain, colors can.

Genie Espinosa Joins CENIE: Illustrating Longevity Through Contemporary Creativity

The International Centre on Ageing (CENIE) continues to broaden the lens through which we approach the demographic and cultural shifts of our time. It’s not just about research and generating scientific knowledge: it’s also essential to find languages that connect with society, that translate complex concepts into images capable of stirring emotion and sparking reflection. Within this framework begins the collaboration with Genie Espinosa, an illustrator known for her vibrant, expressive, and deeply personal style, who will now offer her graphic perspective each week on the topics explored in CENIE’s Bitácora.

Genie Espinosa’s work spans editorial illustration, comics, and artistic experimentation, with collaborations in international media and projects that blend visual storytelling with social engagement. Her energetic linework and bold color palette don’t merely embellish content—they expand it, reinterpret it, and add a new layer of meaning. That’s exactly what CENIE seeks in this phase: to enrich the ways we narrate longevity so that each publication becomes an aesthetic and emotional invitation. In the artist’s own words: “Illustrating for CENIE brings a new dimension for me, because beyond accompanying informative articles, I’ll be able to read, learn, and explore topics around long-lived lives and health. It’s a subject I find super interesting and one that needs more visibility, since we often don’t seek out information until we’re in a personal or family situation. I’m especially happy to be learning about this at this point in my life.”

Each week, Genie will create an original illustration inspired by the same theme as the articles in CENIE’s Bitácora. These won’t be mere accompaniments, but rather autonomous and complementary perspectives. An artistic reading that, through visual language, will engage in dialogue with written reflection and offer new interpretive insights. In addition to this weekly rhythm, a monthly piece will be dedicated to the “central news”—a graphic synthesis of the most relevant topics addressed by CENIE, a visual icon designed to reinforce the collective memory of our readers.

Through this collaboration, CENIE strengthens a line of work that views longevity as a cultural, social, and creative phenomenon. While our scientific studies help us understand biological, economic, and social processes, Genie Espinosa’s contribution reminds us that we also need symbols and visual narratives to share with the public the deeper meaning of what’s unfolding.

Ultimately, it’s about opening a space where research and artistic creation meet. Because long-lived societies aren’t just described with data—they’re also drawn, imagined, and celebrated. And for that, few perspectives are as powerful, contemporary, and free as Genie Espinosa’s.

Genie Espinosa

Illustrator, comic book author, and muralist from Barcelona.

Moving between purely digital work and traditional brush and paint, she collaborates with editorial publications (Das Magazine, Die Zeit, Time Out, Diari Ara, Vice, Wired, Refinery29...) and clients such as Apple, Sony, Nike, Spotify, Wetransfer, and Klarna, among others.

Her style is defined by a strong color palette, exaggerated perspectives, and oversized, non-normative characters who unapologetically claim space in her work. Her illustrations, while often gentle and friendly in appearance, frequently carry a darker undertone and almost always offer a double reading.

Among her recent works are the cover for the single MAFIOSA by singer Nathy Peluso and the release of her first graphic novel HOOPS (Sapristi, March 2021), in which three suburban friends accidentally fall into an interdimensional hole in a (dis/u)-topian future. They cannot escape without first uncovering the secrets of this new place and confronting their own monsters.

This graphic novel earned her the Miguel Gallardo Award for BREAKOUT AUTHOR at the 40th SALON DEL COMICBCN and the ÓJO CRÍTICO comic award from RNE in 2021.

She also coordinates the fanzines RARAS (2019) and MUY RARAS (2020), self-publishing a selection of female authors, illustrators, and writers, celebrating multidisciplinary female talent (listed among the best comics of 2020 by The Comics Journal).