HELLO YANN AND A WARM WELCOME BACK TO THE 4BYSIX FAMILY. WE ARE EXCITED TO HAVE YOU BACK ON OUR LATEST VEHICLES FOR CHANGE INITIATIVE, 

TO BEGIN, WHEN YOU START A NEW PAINTING, CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT THE PROCESS OF DECIDING WHAT ENTERS THE COMPOSITION, AND WHAT ROLE DOES INTUITION VERSUS THIS “COLLECTED ARCHIVE” OF IMAGES AND INFORMATION PLAY IN SHAPING THE FINAL PIECE?

The truth is that intuition is everything in my work. I would also talk about improvisation, but intuition is a more suitable term for how I function during the process. Previously, my work was much more chaotic and involved. You could tell I had more anger. The images overlapped without rules; I didn’t give much importance to composition. I played in many punk bands and didn’t differentiate between painting and screaming into a microphone. I don’t know if it’s evolution or maturity. But it’s true that over the years, I’ve focused more on taking care of composition, image, color, and layers, and the production process has become a more complex inner battle. I no longer want to scream but to murmur. I want to surprise myself, because for me, it’s the only way to surprise others. Nowadays, it’s increasingly difficult to surprise. And this challenge means everything to me. Every day I go to the studio to meet this challenge.

DO YOU SEE THE ACT OF THE “EMOTIONAL NARRATIVE CIRCUITS [WHICH] RE-ORIENT INDIVIDUALS IN A TURBULENT SOCIETY”  AS SOMETHING THAT NATURALLY EMERGES FROM YOUR COMMENTARY ON CONTEMPORARY CULTURE OR AS A MORE DELIBERATE FOCUS WITHIN YOUR WORK?

It’s clear that society is drifting toward something uncontrollable. It’s something that is usually exciting. From many turbulent moments came beautiful moments, cultural revolutions, a lot against abusive regimes and other authoritarian systems. The thing is, now we are facing a much more worrying challenge because we are confronting a conflict ruled by algorithms, artificial intelligence, and a youth increasingly attracted to religion and censorship. Honestly, we might be at a key moment in our system as we know it. Either we react, and painting, music, and art in general will be part of the key that will allow us to end neoliberalism and technological individualism, and the ideology that we cannot change the course of anything. And that capitalism is the only system that sustains us. We must educate our children to show them that this is not the case. Hannah Arendt already warned about how systems seek to nullify the capacity for judgment to impose dogmas or ideology. She demonstrated that accepting the system and participating in its banality and mediocrity is the greatest danger to humanity… and I would add that it’s even more dangerous to claim it.

I like to compare my painting to “The ARGOS Trans-Lunar Heritage Project,” driven by Japan Airlines. Its aim is to send small time capsules with earthly objects to the Moon to ensure that human essence is preserved in case of human extinction. I think of painting as a way to delay the process of alienation of the individual led by an increasingly enclosed and conservative society. My painting is an emotional capsule that releases possibilities.

GIVEN THAT YOU’VE RETURNED TO COLLABORATE AGAIN WITH 4BYSIX, WHAT DREW YOU BACK TO THIS PARTNERSHIP AND WHAT DID THIS NEW PROJECT OFFER YOU THAT FELT WORTH REVISITING COMPARED TO YOUR PREVIOUS ENGAGEMENT WITH THEM?

First, the project has always seemed interesting to me. In a way, it aligns closely with my way of thinking, that is, how, through a full and authentic artistic exercise, we can preserve parts of our past by giving them a second life. It provides an experience to people who haven’t lived it before. And every experience adds up, no matter how insignificant it may be. In a way, this timelessness fascinates me. The people depicted in my paintings don’t belong to any specific era, but they resonate with us and comfort us. It’s like opening a trunk with old photographs. Many of the people we don’t recognize. But it gives us great pleasure to see them.

CAN YOU TELL US MORE ABOUT THE NEW WORK YOU’VE CREATED FOR 4BYSIX, HOW DOES THIS PIECE EXTEND OR SHIFT YOUR ONGOING EXPLORATION WITH UTILISED IMAGES FROM DIGITAL SOCIAL NETWORKS? 

Social networks are a great source of visual information. They are very empty sources, which allows me to add pictorial information from what I see in my works. I’m not interested in depicting images exactly as they come to me. I keep them, I register them, sometimes I print them and store them in folders that I open months or even years later. By then, I have forgotten the meaning of the images. The images suddenly become decontextualized, losing their political and social, sentimental weight… and it’s when I’m most interested in using them. A portrait, a landscape, a fall, an accident, a romance, a dinner becomes a blank book in which I can intervene as I wish. I conduct the orchestra, but I have no audience.

GIVEN YOUR ONGOING INTEREST IN CLASSICAL PAINTING AND THE WAY YOU BORROW MOTIFS AND ICONOGRAPHY FROM ART HISTORY TO CONSTRUCT YOUR SCENES, WERE THERE ANY SPECIFIC ART HISTORICAL REFERENCES OR PARTICULAR WORKS THAT INFORMED YOUR NEW PIECE FOR 4BYSIX?

In this work, I was inspired by a famous image of Marilyn Monroe reading books by Goya and Velázquez. I like to draw on classical painting, photography, and cinema. It’s interesting how this image became viral again, probably more than at the moment the photographer took it. Now we see it as a heroic act – someone reading… and being a famous and spectacular actress on top of that. Apparently, there are dozens of photographs of her reading. I like the moment when the woman is resting in bed, reading peacefully while someone is calling her on the phone. She doesn’t seem to care. Time stands still. It’s not a critique of how networks have evolved or our submission to new technology. It’s that there are also spaces for something else. And I feel like I’m in a cycle of life where I want to portray these moments. We can also see a specter in a mirror behind her, like a mysterious person appearing in the frame. Who could this person be? These are questions I ask myself too. And I love not resolving it…

AS THIS NEW WORK WAS MADE ON A PIECE OF REPURPOSED LORRY TARPAULIN, CAN YOU TELL US HOW YOU FOUND THE EXPERIENCE IN COMPARISON TO THE BUS PANEL IN THE PREVIOUS COLLABORATION?

It’s always very interesting to face a different support. In this case, instead of using the Belgian linen I always used, using the iron part of the bus or the tarpaulin makes you discover other ways of painting. These are very interesting challenges. The material is different, and the concept is too. I wanted to use the grids this canvas provided, and I painted it like a library cabinet. In a way, this led me to this result. The history of the support was, in its own way, a source of inspiration.

IS ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY SOMETHING YOU CONSCIOUSLY FACTOR INTO YOUR PRACTICE? THIS COULD INCLUDE THE WAY YOU PRODUCE YOUR WORK, SUCH AS MATERIALS, SOURCING, AND STUDIO PROCESSES, OR MORE CONCEPTUALLY THROUGH THE THEMES YOU EXPLORE?

Yes, I have worked with this theme in mind. In fact, I have an entire exhibition around environmental evolution, the causes and consequences of our actions towards our only planet. The exhibition was titled “La posibilidad del mundo ” (inspired by title of Michel houellebecq) and was presented at the Karen Huber Gallery in Mexico. I invite people to contact me, and I’ll gladly provide more information and images.

FINALLY, CAN YOU TELL US HOW LIFE IN THE STUDIO HAS BEEN TREATING YOU? WHAT ARE YOUR NEXT STEPS AND ARE THERE ANY NEW PROJECTS YOU WOULD LIKE TO SHARE WITH US? 

After three years of much activity, many exhibitions, and fairs, I decided that 2026 would be a year of pause and production without deadlines. I have produced different pieces like a bronze, ceramics, new paintings in which I feel an interesting and necessary evolution, and I am also producing a film about my creative process. At the same time, I’m preparing two exhibitions in institutions, one of which is in an important museum in Spain for 2028.