I was commissioned to create a few b&w artworks for the finest restaurant in the Midwest US @oakparkdsm
Always challenging to work without colors…
I’m glad to be showing work again at Scope Art Fair, with Moberg Gallery. There will be 3 new works in large format and 3 medium ones, plus sculptures. Come say Hi if you’re around! Booth G09
A coupe murals I made this past summer for @studios_livensaliving
Photos: @cludix
Happy to announce my solo show Au Quotidien in Geneva at IDRoom Gallery.
A collection of new artworks on canvas, wood, ceramic and paper studies that shows the rarities and beauty of daily life in fragile balanced compositions.
From June 22 to July 8 and 22 August to 9 September
Rue du Vieux-Chêne 2 Chêne-Bougeries, Genève
Inquiries: info@idroom.ch
Human Nature is up and running!
Oct 21- Dec 2 at Moberg Gallery. Des Moines, IA (US)
First solo show in the US and can’t be happier with the outcome.
Thank you all who came to the opening. Des Moines rocks!!
-More info-
Inquiries: info@moberggallery.com
TEXT BY MICHAELA MULLIN
It’s Just (…) But It’s Not
Place is important to artist Ruben Sanchez. Because environment + person = the human condition. He is interested in how the world understands us, and we, it. With signature emblematic icons found throughout his work, the materiality of anxiety and overcoming intrigues him, leading to exuberant paintings, sculptures, murals, and more. Sanchez notes that his artworks “sometimes act as mirrors, creating a colorful therapy, and filling the gallery with questions that ask us to think about the mysteries of our mind, the most powerful tool we have.”
His “post-cubism flirts with abstraction,” and with black, white, and the boldest of colors, reminiscent of his home country, Spain, his work merges person and place into a musicality that catches every eye. There’s a story being told in each work. But more importantly, there is a story being told between, among, and through this entire solo exhibit, Human Nature.
“91.4 Percent (Of Your Fears Will Not Come True)” is a large-scale narrative-cum-dreamscape that messages so many things about what we anticipate going wrong: someone letting the air out, emotional deflation, gun and shell casings, the spill over—the overall upset. These fears are balanced atop the human head or heads, and snakes. Everything is a fine balance between choices and chance—not, though, so simple as good and bad—and for better or worse, originating from a certain garden we are all familiar with as metaphor.
“Layers of Normality II & III” capture and evoke action and reaction, in a Jenga-like towering. The strata of items, such as vases, bowls, fruit, basketballs, lightbulbs (a reference to Picasso’s Guernica, where the sun/light/bulb resides over the town’s bomb devastation) fulfill a frontal linear perspective of what happens ‘on the ground,’ so to speak, regardless of aerial or atmospheric releases.
One of the four jovian planets, with its rings, can be seen in “Utopian Dream,” at the very left of the composition. To the right of that, a telescope then points us back to the planetary window. Next comes the human head beyond the scope, and its eyes—the eyes move through the tube, so the mirror is referenced. The hanging light fixture behind the head illuminates the furniture and objects that place the scene—is it an interior? There is a vase with “empty” stones inside, a bird, leaves, and a final right-arm embrace at the right edge of the canvas, bringing the entire composition back to the left. This infinite-loop-reading of inside and outside perfectly frames and reframes what, for Sanchez, is no clear delineation between interior and exterior—there are enough social, cultural, and economic walls, no need for concrete ones here.
The delightful and poignant work, “No Answer,” is an abstract painting with a figure in repose, lounging while talking into their mobile—leaving a message, one would presume. The figure here, like many of Sanchez’s bodies, often appear as if they are “vogueing,” whether they are horizontal, riding bicycles, or seemingly disembodied arms dancing on their own.
Sanchez’s two sculptures, “Ungravity” and “Equilibrio,” represent two states of balance. The infinitive, to balance, becomes something we humans are tasked with in different ways throughout our lives. These works, large and small respectively, both stand upright, but the means of their standing are at opposite poles. The stellar “Ungravity,” made of corrugated cardboard, is an extreme additive sculpture—growing tall with each new flat piece of cut-out cardboard and suspended by wire, though it sits on the floor. The corrugation offers texture and operate as added shadows within the sculpture. “Equilibrio” is a ceramic still life that, again, is stacked to a vertical composition, though shorter in stature and solid at its base.
“Insomnia” is a wild rug of hand-tufted acrylic wool. This non-rectangular piece creates another in/side/out/side scene. A black cat sits at the window, looking out—to the moonlit sky, an asterisk gleaming up above. Are the other shapes “behind” the cat remnants of a party, a solo resident? You see a steaming bowl of soup? A slice of pizza? A central vase of leaves without blooms, often the case with Sanchez’s flora—because flowering is not always necessary, right?
This show holds so much and so many “dynamic still-life paintings with elements in fragile balance or being scrambled by external elements that disrupt daily life,” in Sanchez’s own words. He knows the eyes have it, for “seeing” is key. A branch of things here, a layer of something there, a rug that can be pulled from beneath us. May we not infinitely keep, but continually re-encounter, our balance.
Make sure to visit the gallery to see Human Nature before it closes, Dec. 3.
New mural project in Downtown Austin, TX
‘Rumble’ is my latest work, a 3-side artwork that covers a building on Brazos street.
I had to face a very challenging architecture here where placing my elements around windows, pipes, rough bricks, staircases, fire exits, and more windows has been quite a mission.
Not the easiest wall I have painted but I had an amazing time, so happy to be back here.
City rumble, Southern hospitality, live music, peña loca, hectic life. Keep Austin weird!
Texas with a Mediterranean twist, a blast of color among the glass and concrete jungle.
Many thanks to the Texas fam: David, Luis Miguel, Todd , Mario, and the whole team.
Very special thanks to my assistant Victor.
The building is located at 610 Brazos st. and 7th right next to the Driskill hotel.
Many thanks MashedPotatoVisuals for the great photos
‘La Tentación’
A recent handmade sculpture made in oak wood, epoxy resin and magic
40x30x8cm
So excited to announce my first solo show in the US: Human Nature.
October 21st at Moberg Gallery. (Des Moines, IA)
A celebration of the human condition, embracing our imperfections but also our ability to overcome difficult situations.
This is a new body of work, where post-cubism flirts with abstraction, and where color creates a dialogue with black and white, in a mix of styles.
These paintings, that sometimes act as mirrors, create a colorful therapy, filling the gallery with questions that ask us to think about the mysteries of our mind, the most powerful tool we have. This exhibit also wants to remind us that happiness can be found in the small everyday details rather than where we place unrealistic expectations and goals.
During this journey, many external factors will try to break our balance as depicted in some of the paintings; but the way we deal with these issues is key to maintaining stability in these unbalanced situations. You’ll find dynamic still-life paintings with elements in fragile balance or being scrambled by external elements that disrupt daily life. There are visual metaphors that challenge the viewer to decipher subjects, such as anxiety, forgiveness, overcoming, nostalgia, unconditional love, self-esteem… but the viewer can also create their own interpretation and draw their own conclusions—that’s what makes art independently beautiful.
Welcome to this journey with no destination.
Showing this canvas at Urban Break 2022 in Seoul, Korea by the hand of Volery Gallery & StreetArtNews
Curated by Rom Levy
Happy to be showing in Korea for the first time and in very good company
Equilibrios Cotidianos VIII
Spraypaint on canvas 95x150cm
Excited to share this very special project I recently did with Nike for their European Headquarters, a sculpture made out of more than 2000 pairs of recycled shoes!
This new sculpture recently installed at the new campus is my second public art project in the new installations of the brand.
The artwork shows a soccer player upside down focusing on a flower growing up from the ground and it wants to make us consider our dialogue with nature through its message and construction in Nike Grind, a material entirely made of recycled shoes that the brand uses for different purposes from running tracks or basketball courts to create furniture.
I used one of the company's mottos to create a guideline for the project: "No Planet, No Sports" that reflects the commitment of the brand with sustainability. In the end it’s all about priorities so we must strike a balance somehow.
It’s the first time that a sculpture is made of Nike Grind (a material made of recycled shoes mostly that they use to build running tracks, furniture, etc.) and we faced a few challenges during the fabrication.
After collecting the recycled material, the team from Colossus Printers tested the material in order to know the resistance and feasibility of the project. Once approved, they 3D printed my model, then I hand painted the key elements of the artwork while the rest of the sculpture shows the raw material polished. If you look close enough you can appreciate the tiny chunks of shoes. It’s crazy!
Shout out to Renee @theoneprojectrecycling @colossusprinters Wouter and David for making it possible.
You can check it out at the public area of the Nike Campus, located in Hilversum, NL. Next to the skatepark and my other sculpture there, the Bounce.
Massive thanks to Nike for believing in me for this project.
It’s cool that we all as individuals take part and do our thing for the planet but I think the big companies are really the ones that can make a change. I’m sure there’s always room to improve but it’s been great to see in first person how Nike is taking it very seriously through countless initiatives.
Hope you like it!
The other day we spent a really nice day at the beach right where I live in Badalona painting this wall in community for a charity event by @bomberssolidaris & @proactivaopenarms
My friends Begoña and Spogo as well and many kids who passed by helped make this happen.
Photos by @feralcala / Paint by Montana Colors
TEXT BY MICHAELA MULLIN
Contemporary Abstraction: Collaging Space and Color
This exhibit makes space for over twenty artists from around the world, who spend time creating abstractions of the things they see and feel and are. They bring experience to us in a heuristic form with their artworks, and they trust that the viewer will leave having picked up a few new things to think about.
Ruben Sanchez’s paintings “Momentum II” and “Momentum III” are deeply hued vanitas works, fuller than many of his older ones. Smaller in scale but offering multiple scenes, tableaus multiplied to make yet a larger tableau. The magenta, tangerine orange, turquois blue, and golden yellows create—combined with the vases and stems, cactus and guitar—a unique style that is warm and Almodovarian.
Dope photo by Marcel Veldman of this guy (sorry don’t know the name!) riding the ball of The Bounce, my sculpture at Nike Eu HQ.
Showing for the first time in San Francisco! If you’re around pass by Heron Arts to check this group show where I’ll have a few pieces :)
Excited to share this project for the newest ship by Brittany Ferries, Salamanca.
A liquid gas powered lady that will be cruising between Spain and UK with a drastically reduced environmental impact.
I created many works for their indoor installations as well as some mural art for the sundeck.
It’s been a great time working on this and hey I even learnt how to drive this beast, thanks captain!
You will find a nicely curated selection of works by different artists and photographers in this ship apart of my work.
Many thanks to all the crew, specially Kimberly Poppe for the support and great vibe
©All photos by KlunderBie
Humbled to have designed this special board for my friend and Spanish legend Dani Lebrón who’s been killing the streets in style for over two decades. Thanks to Titus Skateboards for this chance
Artwork inspired by Dani’s famous gladiator breakfast.
Check below his new video part.
I have a couple of large canvases showing now at Galeria Ola in Barcelona (Consell de Cent 383).
The title and concept of the show is Emoción. That’s why we chose to show “Jeopardy” and “Crash II”, two artworks quite linked to emotional balance like I explained here. I’m happy to be surrounded in this show by the good company of Javier Mariscal, Xano Armenter, Carmen Van den Eynde and Manuel Outumuro.
Showing until April.
I started the year with this big installation in Shanghai where you can find many of my works in different locations of the Showay centre on the occasion of the Chinese New Year / Year of the Tiger.
