The work of Ana Pais Oliveira, Iván Baizán and Rubén Fernández Castón starts from a shared interest in geometry and its plastic translation. The proposal of these creators conveys a clear interest in the construction of new physical spaces with which to body their concern for the environment and the role of the individual in the urban environment. On many occasions, it is about proposing alternative buildings, imaginary architectures that defy natural laws; in others, giving way to a geometric abstraction where the volumes are defined by contrasts of colour.

Rubén Fernández Castón

Entrelíneas III, 2016

Acrylic on wood

55 x 42cm

Ana Pais Oliveira

Heavy drawing #26, 2017

Mixed media on cardboard

70 x 50cm

Iván Baizán

XV (de la serie "Usted no está aquí"), 2018

Serigrafía, acrílico, poliestireno y papel montado en caja de madera (obra enmarcada en caja y cristal)

40 x 30cm

If something characterises contemporary geometry, is its ambition to exploit the plastic possibilities of the materials to generate the illusion of volume and depth from the linearity of the flat support. It is, in reality, a hand extended to the viewer, an invitation to transcend the physical limitations of our three-dimensional space to give free rein to alternative realities, to floating constructions, to buildings without support points, to impossible materials.

This is one of the strong points of the work of Iván Baizán. The pieces of the collection "In the limits of the structure" develops one of the most paradigmatic facets of this artist, specialised in engraving and printing. His work offers urban cartography based on the superposition of planes and the communicative power of colour. In the form of exquisite wooden boxes, his last works are like windows open to a new universe, the one where man has taken the reins of his time and space, where it is not necessary to live corseted by inherited forms and unbreakable laws. Its floating architectures pose a paradox in a perfect aesthetic balance that combines materials, design and staging.

Iván Baizán

VI (de la serie "Usted no está aquí"), 2017

Serigrafía, acrílico, poliestireno y papel montado en caja de madera (obra enmarcada en caja y cristal)

100 x 80cm

Iván Baizán

II (de la serie "Usted no está aquí"), 2017

Serigrafía, acrílico, poliestireno y papel montado en caja de madera (obra enmarcada en caja y cristal)

100 x 80cm

The Portuguese Ana Pais Oliveira follows a similar line. Her work is a compendium of structures where architecture is very present. All her work conveys that tricky balance between the colourist abstraction and the game of textures in a display of proposals that go from painting on canvas to collage on cardboard. Constructions of the imagination that make their way around two fundamental ideas: line and colour. The geometry of Ana Pais is solid and wide; it expands in ambitious formats and with friendly tones that transfer to the support the utopia of the impossible architectures.

Ana Pais Oliveira

Heavy drawing #35, 2017

Mixed media on cardboard

70 x 50cm

Ana Pais Oliveira

Heavy drawing #32, 2017

Mixed media on cardboard

70 x 50cm

Ana Pais Oliveira

Heavy drawing #40, 2017

Mixed media on cardboard

70 x 50cm

For his part, Rubén Fernández Castón exceeds the limits of traditional painting to create works that approach sculpture. His most recent work applies geometry to pieces that develop on two sides and participate in the double game of illusion, the "meta-geometry", inside and outside the work itself. With flat and clean colour strokes, the contours are created by opposition, with a dance of contrasts that risks with shocking tones, without overlapping, neat, concise and pure.

Rubén Fernández Castón

Entrelíneas IV, 2016

Acrylic on wood

59 x 40cm

Rubén Fernández Castón

Entrelíneas V, 2016

Acrylic on wood

60 x 40cm

The work of Cedric Le Corf (Bühl, Germany, 1985) is situated in a territory of friction, where the archaic impulse of the sacred coexists with a critical sensibility characteristic of contemporary times. His practice is grounded in an anthropological understanding of the origin of art as a foundational gesture: the trace, the mark, the need to inscribe life in the face of the awareness of death.

The artist establishes a complex dialogue with the Spanish Baroque tradition, not through stylistic mimicry, but through the emotional and material intensity that permeates that aesthetic. The theatricality of light, the embodiment of tragedy, and the hybridity of the spiritual and the carnal are translated in his work into a formal exploration, where underlying geometry and embedded matter generate perceptual tension.

In Le Corf’s practice, the threshold between abstraction and figuration is not an opposition but a site of displacement. Spatial construction and color function as emotional tools that destabilize the familiar. An open methodology permeates this process, in which planning coexists with a deliberate loss of control. This allows the work to emerge as a space of silence, withdrawal, and return, where the artist confronts his own interiority.

The Fall. 2025. Oil on canvas.195 × 150 cm.

In your work, a tension can be perceived between devotion and dissidence. How do you negotiate the boundary between the sacred and the profane?

In my work, I feel the need to return to rock art, to the images I carry with me. From the moment prehistoric humans became aware of death, they felt the need to leave a trace—marking a red hand on the cave wall using a stencil, a symbol of vital blood. Paleolithic man, a hunter-gatherer, experienced a mystical feeling in the presence of the animal—a form of spiritual magic and rituals linked to creation. In this way, the cave becomes sacred through the abstract representation of death and life, procreation, the Venus figures… Thus, art is born. In my interpretation, art is sacred by essence, because it reveals humankind as a creator.

Between Dog and Wolf II. 2025. Oil on canvas. 97 × 70 cm.

Traces of the Spanish Baroque tradition can be seen in your work. What do you find in it that remains contemporary today?

Yes, elements of the Spanish Baroque tradition are present in my work. In the history of art, for example, I think of Arab-Andalusian mosaics, in which I find a geometry of forms that feels profoundly contemporary. In Spanish Baroque painting and sculpture, one recurring theme is tragedy: death and the sacred are intensely embodied, whether in religious or profane subjects, in artists such as Zurbarán, Ribera, El Greco, and also Velázquez. I am thinking, for example, of the remarkable equestrian painting of Isabel of France, with its geometry and nuanced portrait that illuminates the painting.

When I think about sculpture, the marvelous polychrome sculptures of Alonso Cano, Juan de Juni, or Pedro de Mena come to mind—works in which green eyes are inlaid, along with ivory teeth, horn fingernails, and eyelashes made of hair. All of this has undoubtedly influenced my sculptural practice, both in its morphological and equestrian dimensions. Personally, in my work I inlay porcelain elements into carved or painted wood.

Between Dog and Wolf I. 2025. Oil on canvas. 97 × 70 cm.

What interests you about that threshold between the recognizable and the abstract?

For me, any representation in painting or sculpture is abstract. What imposes itself is the architectural construction of space, its secret geometry, and the emotion produced by color. It is, in a way, a displacement of the real in order to reach that sensation.

The Anatomical Angel. 2013. Ash wood and porcelain. 90 × 15 × 160 cm.

Your work seems to move between silence, abandonment, and return. What draws you toward these intermediate spaces?

I believe it is by renouncing the imitation of external truth, by refusing to copy it, that I reach truth—whether in painting or in sculpture. It is as if I were looking at myself within my own subject in order to better discover my secret, perhaps.

Justa. 2019. Polychrome oak wood. 240 × 190 × 140 cm.

To what extent do you plan your work, and how much space do you leave for the unexpected—or even for mistakes?

It is true that, on occasions, I completely forget the main idea behind my painting and sculpture. Although I begin a work with very clear ideas—preliminary drawings and sketches, preparatory engravings, and a well-defined intention—I realize that, sometimes, that initial idea gets lost. It is not an accident. In some cases, it has to do with technical difficulties, but nowadays I also accept starting from a very specific idea and, when faced with sculpture, wood, or ceramics, having to work in a different way. I accept that.