How would you define yourself?
A painter of the Cuenca School.
What can the audience expect from your collaboration with Spain NOW!?
My paintings take up again some of the themes present in traditional Spanish painting. I believe they can serve as a way to investigate the relationship, in painting, between the contemporary and the legacy of tradition.
What do you think your collaboration with Spain NOW! will bring for you?
I have recently arrived in London and I am delighted to be exhibiting my work already. What one always looks for is to meet people who share one’s own anxieties and to be able to have long conversations with them about these. Describe or give us some insights about your creative process. I try not to pay too much attention to myself and to paint in the most tranquil manner possible.
Where have you shown internationally before? And in Spain?
– Miami (USA) – Basel (Switzerland) – ZOO, London (UK) – twice – Travesía Cuatro Gallery, Spain – I am an ARCO regular
What can you say about the current state of Spanish culture within your field? What other emergent Spanish artists can you recommend for those who enjoy your work?
Gutiérrez Solana and Benjamín Palencia (it’s a joke…). I have no idea. In my opinion, culture in Spain depends far too much on institutional and State promotion and support. I believe this has impoverished the cultural scene. There’s a lot of artistic output in Spain, but it’s all very self-indulgent and very similar.
Do you have affinities or share interests with any artists working in the UK?
I like to think so. The way in which painting is understood in the UK is completely different to the way in which it is perceived in Spain. In Spain, painting is regarded as a conservative discipline allied to an antiquated concept of reality, and also to the expressive subjectivity of the romantic tradition. In the UK, painting is a practice in its own right, comparable to any other. I like Sophie Von Hellerman’s work very much.
Define your work in a sentence…
Do you know what one lemon says to another lemon?: ‘Can you be a colour?’
Define yourself as: a colour: burn umber