Born in Buenos Aires in 1960 where grew up and lived until he was 28. It was when he was only 10 years old that his father took him for the first time to the Buenos Aires race circuit to watch a F1 and Sportcars Grand Prix, he was that shocked and impressed by all about he saw that as he said once about that: “I felt as if falling in love with sportcars and F1 racing cars… in a very special way I felt captivated by the Porsche 917, and I perfectly remember I was not hungry for almost 2 weeks!”, At this point, he did not realise how relevant that fact was in his future life, as he had come across one of his two passions. The other had already loomed from his infancy, for he showed his affinity and interest in drawing and all about art at the school, however from that memorable day watching racing cars, he always chose drawing both sport and F1 cars instead of other themes.
It was in 1978 led by his own desire for painting, mainly racing cars at that time , Juan Carlos entered The Fine Art School, and soon he found a job in one of the most prestigious graphic design companies in Argentina where he started his professional career as an illustrator.
“I will be always thankful for having been the opportunity to develop and learn at once, I could interchange both the knowledge I learnt at Fine Art School, and the one I was obtaining by means of that job. That was definitely fundamental for me to learn and acquire a higher level method and the development of my skill.” explains Juan Carlos.
In 1985, even before he graduated he took part in several projects for important clients such as, Marlboro, Renault, Aerolineas Argentinas amongst others.
Once he finished his Fine Art studies in 1988, he moved to Ibiza (Spain) and a year later he moved to Barcelona where he still lives today.
In 1994 he held his fist “solo” Motoring art painting Exhibition, and so he started his full time career as an auto artist.
He entered the 1st. International Motoring Art Competition, and was awarded with the 1st prize among more than 260 artist’s entries from all over the world. The event was organized by a prestigious English company Planners International Events (P.I.E.), who were dedicated to promote and manage Motoring art painters.
He didn’t just win the 1st prize, but he was also approached by them to be painting under their management and he agreed.
In 1997 working with PIE management, he published more than 50 Limited Edition Prints of his original paintings, as well as commissioned original works and he held at least one “solo” exhibition a year around Europe and mainly in London.
In 2000 Juan Carlos was published his first book; “The Motorsport Art of Juan Carlos Ferrigno” by Christopher Hilton. Apart from motorsport Juan Carlos also started painting and depicting music which also suited his style of work. He had his first “solo” Music Art exhibition in 2003 “The Art of Music” at the Mall Galleries in London which was a great success. Through this he was also involved with “Hope for Tomorrow” foundation which became the first unit medical mobile centre with the unique aim to help and give support to families to cope with cancer.
From then and always under PIE’s management, since 1988 he has had several paintings exhibited at the F1 Paddock Club, where he normally attends the exhibition personally, getting commissions and also working on new originals.
Ferrigno has exclusively been working both his motoring and art of music together with Chris Mills, and altogether he has achieved such a different and unmistakable style, therefore has accumulated a lot of enthusiasts and clients around the world who recognize and love his way of painting.
His work is collected and appreciated worldwide. Here are a few names who own some of his work; the British Racing Drivers Club (B.R.D.C), Eddie Jordan, Jody Scheckter, Mika Hakkinen, Jaques Villeneuve, Juan Manuel Fangio’s Museum, Ayrton Senna’s Foundation, Ross Brawn, Ron Dennis, Sir Stirling Moss, Sir Cliff Richard, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards just to name a few.
Today after 25 years, he continues fully dedicated, always trying to capture real motion in his work. His new addition to his portfolio is Marine Art paintings. He held his first exhibition on yachting and marine art in 2005 at Protocol-VIP hall at “Salón Nautico de Fira de Barcelona”.
You can find out more about Juan Carlos, see more of his works and contact him on his website here.
Also, you can follow him on Facebook here.
Motorsport is our Passion