Other projects

Stillness in Gracia

That Antoni Gaudí’s La Pedrera gleams in the foreground through the window of this attic pavilion on Barcelona’s Paseo de Gracia strikes me as the perfect pretext to establish a dialogue between this unique space (whose only apparent function is that of privileged contemplation), the landscape of the city, and some objects I arranged in the foreground.

La Pedrera and the city in the background are both seen through a round-arched window at the far end of the room, whose layout imposes a strictly orthogonal contemplation. This grants the scene a certain classical character—somewhere between ideal and imagined—or not quite of this world, aligning well with my preference for images conceived as artifice.

An icosahedron hangs from the ceiling in the form of an inverted baldachin, whose points delimit the composition in the foreground. On the circular table, four objects: a white sphere, a small bouquet of everlastings in a glass of water, and two pieces by the Finnish designer Tapio Wirkkala.

Wirkkala’s Jahresteller plate is inspired by the groupings of inverted domes formed by bubbles on a surface; the everlastings are succulents with fractal geometry; and the Ovalis vase (also by Wirkkala), filled with stones from Altea beach, together with the round white candle, catches the light that enters through the window in the background and the opening on the side.

I have always been interested in the architecture of spaces and beautiful, simple objects, as well as the relationships they establish among themselves. Beyond the sentimental or biographical aspect of things, I am drawn to their material essence, the contrast between the finite nature of some objects and the enduring nature of others—and particularly, when I use charcoal, the dramatising effect that light exerts on the matter of all things.

The scene strives for harmony—just one of its many possible forms. Its meaning does not fully reveal itself and remains open to interpretation. Let us look, then.

Stillness in Gracia, 2022, charcoal on paper and panel, 87 × 87 cm / 34¼ × 34¼ in

Farewell bouquet

Every year, at the end of spring, the sunlight begins to seep into my studio in the evenings, and I feel impelled to create a work that draws on the effects of light and shadow on its walls.

In the spring of 2015, beside the large window, there was a bouquet of dried flowers from the day of my father’s funeral. Without any conscious intention, I included them in a charcoal drawing, which immediately turned into something else—something like a portrait of him in absentia, or a vanitas. The oil painting I made next was a fully deliberate attempt to represent him through an architectural space composed of elements drawn from reality, imagination, and memory.

Farewell Bouquet I, 2015, charcoal on prepared panel, 70 × 110 cm / 27½ × 43¼ in

Farewell Bouquet II, 2015, oil on panel, 70 × 70 cm / 27½ × 27½ in

Leiria, the curved corridor

Normally, a body of work is the result of a quiet reflection on things that are within my reach and that interest me. On a few occasions, the idea arises suddenly from the discovery of something —or someone— that catches my attention. That was the case with my chance encounter with the building of the Escola Superior de Artes e Design in Caldas da Rainha, designed by the Portuguese architect Vítor Figueiredo.

During a trip to Portugal, to pick up my eldest daughter from an Erasmus program, I visited the building. I was struck by the stripped-down sobriety of that white construction rising in the middle of a pine forest, and by its wide curved corridors bathed in natural light. After visiting the building —and with hardly any time to reflect, since we had to leave at once— I took a few photographs with my mobile phone as a kind of note. How I would have loved to study in such a magnificent building!

Months later, I did a charcoal study. Painting, as artifice, is the outcome of a mental process in which reality is transformed. In this case, from the outset, it seemed to me that the greatest challenge lay in achieving something that is, on the surface, so simple —but in fact so difficult— as defining the scale of the scene within the format. The crowding effect produced by the powerful foreshortening of the curved corridor, and the absence of any element to serve as a scale reference, made it hard to understand the actual dimensions of the depicted space. Was it a colossal place, evoking the hypostyle halls of the Ancient World, or was it an intimate corner seen from near ground level?

In other works, the gaze flies more freely, but in such a strong foreshortening, vision is compelled to follow a path imposed by the perspective —leading the eye from background to foreground and back again to its origin— generating a tension that must be resolved at one end or the other.

In both the charcoal and the oil versions, I introduced a still life element in the foreground in an attempt to resolve the enigma.

Study for Leiria, charcoal on panel, 60 × 60 cm / 23½ × 23½ in

Large painting for AGM

Architectural space, 2018, digital collage, 21 × 56 cm / 8¼ × 22 in

The piece is an interior still life measuring 100 x 400 cm (39¼ x 157½ in), conceived and painted specifically for the 70 m² (753.5 sq. ft.) space it inhabits: a large living room with a relatively low ceiling for its size, illuminated by a skylight, a lateral opening, and a large front window offering privileged views of a park.
It is composed of three panels: the central one, resolved with overhead light, avoids conflict with the natural lighting of the space; the two side panels suggest more intimate openings toward a courtyard-like nature. They do not affect the lighting of the scene but are essential to the composition, relieving the tension inherent in such a forcefully narrow format.

Several panels

Complete view of painting, 2006, oil on canvas mounted on panel, 100 × 400 cm / 39¼ × 157½ in