Javier Recio Gracia

Javier Recio Gracia was born in Madrid, Spain in July of 1981. At the age of 6, Javier and his family moved to Granada, Spain, where he began to explore his interest in art and illustration. By the age of 16, he and his friends began developing an anthology of graphic novels, Proyecto Comic, which was published and in circulation for 10 years. At the age of 20, he began studying fine arts at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. He took an interest in working at Kandor Graphics, an animation studio headed by Antonio Banderas, Manuel Sicilia, and Raul Garcia, and was hired as an intern in their art department 2005. After one year, Javier was hired on as a full-time artist in their art department as well as a storyboard and story development artist to work on their feature film, The Missing Lynx(2009). In 2009, the studio supported Javier as he wrote, directed, art directed, and helped storyboard his first animated short film, The Lady and the Reaper. In 2010, The Lady and the Reaper won the Goya award for "Best Short Film," won "Best Short Film" in over 20 international film festivals, and was nominated for an Oscar award. He began working on another feature film, Justin and the Knights of Valour as a storyboard artist and character designer. In 2010 Javier moved to Los Angeles, California, to work at DreamWorks Animation as a storyboard artist on a few feature films: "Rise of the Guardians", "Me and My Shadow" and "Boss Baby". In 2014 Javier moved to New York where is actually working as freelance in various animated projects.