Premio Combat Prize

Currently lives and works in Bilbao, Spain
I was born in Melilla (Spain) in 1973, I finished my PhD in Economics at UC Berkeley (USA) and after working more than seven years as economic journalist and foreing correspondent in the USA, I decided to turn my profession into my passion and devote myself to painting.
Between 2011 and 2013 I took courses in painting and drawing at University of Berkeley, California (USA), and I started to develope my own work in my first studio in San Francisco (USA).
After that came the European phase with drawing courses in London and a Master of Arts majoring in Painting at the University of Barcelona in 2014. Already in 2015 and back in Madrid, I have my first exhibitions in Spain.
Currently I am working in a big studio in Bilbao, which allows me to address the development of largescale pieces.
My pictorial interests have always been developed in the field of informalism and abstract expressionism. The vibrant and spontaneous gesture and the relevance of the process have always been present in my work. However, it is possible to observe an evolution defined by the transition from the purely abstract to
the new pieces where object-based references are included. I am interested in making progress along the path of personal, critical and conscious dialogue through the representation of the mundane, the trivial, the insignificant, and their sacred condition because it is what is present in our daily lives and in the enormous value of the instant.
EDUCATION
2001 - PhD Economics, University of Basque Country (Spain) and University of Berkeley, Berkeley (USA)
2002 - Analog Photography and Experimental Drawing, University of Berkeley, Berkeley (USA)
2009 - Private Sculpture Classes at Deborah Hoch’s studio, San Francisco (USA)
2012 - Classical Figure Drawing Workshop, London Atelier of Representational Art, London (UK)
2013 - Painting and Drawing courses under the Post-Baccalaureate Cerficate in Visual Arts, University of
Berkeley, San Francisco (USA)
2014 - Master of Arts, Painting, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelon (Spain)
AWARDS
2016 - Finalist at the 8th Art Slant Prize
2016 - Finalist at the November contest at Fusion Art Gallery
EXHIBITIONS
Next 2017: Basel, Venice, NY, Bilbao.
2017 - Group exhibition, ”Women” Feel&Flow Gallery, Madrid (Spain)
2017 - Group exhibition, Crisolart Gallery, Barcelona (Spain)
2017 - Group exhibition, ”Winter Colors” TandemArt Gallery, Sabadell (Spain)
2016 - Group exhibition, “Claret” Circuit Artistic, Barcelona (Spain)
2016 - Group exhibition, “GoingInland” GZ Gallery, Barcelona (Spain)
2016 - Individual exhibition, K2, Bilbao (Spain)
2016 - Group exhibition, “Auttumn Color” Tandem Gallery, Sabadell (Spain)
2016 - Group exhibition, “Blanco” Nave 73, Madrid (Spain)
2016 - Group exhibition, Estudios A Tu Aire, Bilbao (Spain)
2015 - Individual exhibition, 0’Level, Madrid (Spain)
2010 - Individual performance: Appearance and Meaning, San Francisco (USA)
2003 - Group exhibition, Photography, Bakrenko Collection, Saint Petersburg (Russia)
REPRESENTATION AND RECOGNITIONS
2017 - Artist at UfoFabrik Gallery, Moena (Italy)
2016 - Artist at Garte AYA Abstract Art Gallery, Bilbao (Spain)
2016 - Partner&Artist at Jano, Association for the Promotion and Divulgation of Arts, Barcelona (Spain)
PROJECTS
2017 – Jano Association. The Hotel of the Arts, Catalonia (Spain)
The everyday misshapen objects that appear in my paintings are a common denominator in my evolution as a painter. My international experience finds an anchor point in these elements that are
repeated from one place to another and become a metaphor of the questions that my work tries to answer. The big issues have not changed along the different places, and the country in question and its everyday items have become a new perspective from which to answer the same kind of questions: consciousness on experience, the sense of being and interactions between social egos, among others.