Marc Boutavant, French illustrator born in Dijon in 1970, is certainly one of the most interesting European authors for children – it is to him that Martin Salisbury dedicated the cover of his last book "Play Pen", a summary of last years most important illustrators.
In Italy, his first book is published by Fabbri in 2007, Around the world with Mouk (Sticker Book): a world filled with colours, plain and garish dyes, with objects, plants, trees, flowers, actions, hidden details and, overall, the protagonists, human-like animals. Boutavant takes to its last extent the liking for the representation of the details, a gathering of little things with an exciting effect: little elements kept together by the complex architecture of the plate, day-life  scenes. 
Along with comics author Emmanuel Guibert, Boutavant  is also the creator of the character Ariol, protagonist of the namesake cartoon, recently published in Italy. In Ariol a child-donkey takes part in the everyday life of a class composed by various animal species. However from this vision any didactic effect is banished: it is not a sweetened way to communicate the culture or worlds diversity, they are just many children. Ariol everyday’s adventures are childhood bits imbued with pure irony fragments.
The exhibition at Sala d'Ercole, in Palazzo d'Accursio, is going to present plates from Ariol as well as the preparatory sketches and  fragments of the cartoon series.