From Taiwan to Brazil and from Ecuador to Thailand

More than 200 artists represented by 41 galleries make up the general program of this edition of Art Madrid. During the fifteen years of the fair, the international presence of both artists and galleries has increased to 40% of the total.

Artists have come from Cuba, Venezuela, the United States, South Africa, Algeria, Iran, Taiwan, Brazil, Argentina... and dozens of countries that have participated in Art Madrid over the years.

In this edition we have such a variety of artists from faraway countries that we have found the line of the antipodes among several of them.

Mu Pan, Taiwan. Represented by Galerie LJ

Mu Pan describes his work as "simply about telling stories " In his intricate battle scenes, human figures, beasts and strange mixtures of the two come together in epic life-and-death struggles. In his "origaMU" paper sculptures, colorful creatures take on a 3D form. The artist is "a creator of worlds" as he puts it. He portrays critical stories full of details taken to the extreme, entering into an art where references to literary, political and cultural stories are intermingled.

Mu Pan

Locusts, 2015

Acrílico sobre panel de madera

121 x 91cm

Mu Pan of Taiwanese origin studied Art at the School of Visual Arts in New York, where he now teaches illustration. During the past 2019 the collection SOLO welcomed part of this peculiar world in which one can get lost for hours discovering in every detail and in every corner of the painting something new.

With a critical and incisive look, but without losing his sense of humour and irony, the author captures in his paintings everything that displeases him, such as racism, violence or lies, and puts both the present time and nature in focus.

His artworks reflect the many cultural influences to which he has been exposed, from Chinese literature to superheroes, from ukiyoe to cinema and comics. To contemplate a work of Mu Pan is to soak up action, dynamism and energy through his meticulously constructed battles. His paintings have an extreme degree of detail that is reminiscent of the paintings of El Bosco, with connotations of the end of the world, hybrid characters, half man, half animal, on the verge of caricature, as well as epic scenes in which he mixes references to current events and manga culture. Mu Pan's work is a pretext to highlight everything that displeases him: violence, conflict or lies, which he captures in his paintings in the key of anger and humour. In the artist's words: "Drawing and painting are for me the most obvious ways to claim justice". Global warming, racism, classism or the trade wars between superpowers serve as inspiration for this artist who puts current events and human nature in the spotlight.

Mu Pan

Jesura The Holy Kaiju, 2019

Acrílico sobre panel de madera

92 x 243cm

Mu Pan

Tiger, 2017

Acrílico sobre panel de madera

92 x 243cm

Chen Yun, Taiwan. Yiri Arts Gallery

Chen Yu's drawings have evolved from horizontal to vertical constructions, a compositional style that grows upwards, visually exploring the dimensional and psychological impact. Behind this methodically planned composition, and as in poetry, there are clues that allude to time and reality. With scenes in fixed camera, a detailed shot on one side, the silhouette of a woman on the opposite side, an image full of symbolism... Chen acts as a guide, carrying a weak light that accompanies the viewer into the depths of memory.

Chen Sheng-Wen studied Visual Communication Design at National Yunlin University in Taiwan. He has had several solo and group exhibitions in Taiwan and Japan. He has been awarded with Taipei Free Art Fair, Huashan 1914 Taipei.

Chen Yun

Indigo. The light from the forest shine on the blue ocean, 2018

Ácrilico sobre lienzo (2 piezas)

130 x 194cm

Lai Wei-Yu, Taiwan. Yiri Arts Gallery

The artist Lai Wei-Yu takes seemingly absurd situations and explores them with childlike amazement. However, in the dark corners we can also glimpse the frustration and desolation of life. Lai Wei-Yu studied at the MFA Institute of Arts in Taiwan. His artwork has been shown in several individual and collective exhibitions and is also present in public collections such as that of the National Museum of Fine Arts in Taiwan.

Lai Wei-Yu

My Family, 2018

Acrylic and charcoal on canvas

160 x 160cm

Paul Rosero Contreras (Quito, 1982). Más arte Galería

Paul is a conceptual artist who works with scientific information, speculative realism and different fictional narratives. His work explores issues related to geopolitics, environmental problems and the relationship of humans in extreme ecosystems. Rosero received an MFA from the California Institute of Arts - CalArts and an Interdisciplinary Master's Degree in Cognitive Systems and Interactive Media from Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. Her work has received national and international awards and has been widely exhibited at the 57th Venice Biennale, Antarctic Pavilion, Italy, at the 5th Moscow Biennale of Young Art, at the Quai Branly Museum in Paris, France, at the Cervantes Institute in Rome, Italy, at the Museum of History in Zaragoza, Spain, the H2 Art Center in Augsburg, Germany, at the 11th Moscow Biennale of Young Art. Biennial of Cuenca, Ecuador, in Import Projects, Berlin, Germany, in the 1st Antarctic Biennial, in the 1st Southern Biennial in Argentina, in the SIGGRAPH 2017 in Los Angeles, among others. Rosero teaches and researches at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito.

Chamnan Chongpaiboon

Girl, 2019

Acrylic on canvas

120 x 100cm

Chamnan Chongpaiboon, Thailand. Soraya Cartategui

Chamnan Chongpaiboon is part of the new generation of young Thai artists. He attended the Faculty of Fine Arts in Shupanburi and obtained his Bachelor of Fine Arts with a major in Printmaking from the King Mougkut Institute of Technology in Ladkrabang.

Chamnan artworks with an innovative graphic style, under the modern bases of multimedia art and Japanese printing forms. His inspiration is closely linked to artists such as the Japanese Yayoi Kusama (1929, Matsumoto, Japan) whose work revolves around psychedelia, repetition and patterns. Her artistic production is limited due to the artist's meticulous work in making each piece. He is an artist with a great international career. Among the countries and cities where he has exhibited his pieces we find Australia, London, New York, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Miami, Singapore, etc.

Eduardo Marco, Porto Alegre (Brazil). Zielinsky Gallery

The artistic envoy that moves this photographer is the concern to clear up what is hidden from the common gaze; to reveal in its most literal sense what is apparently insignificant, but which the artist's gaze makes us perceive as a harmonic, igniting in us the spark of enthusiasm. In this process, Marco's honesty does not carry the heavy burden of theoretical assumptions; it is given without learned dogmas. Marco's gaze rescues the pristine beauty of the lotus lit in the mud puddle. He has participated in many projects in different parts of the world, such as China and Brazil.

Nina Franco. Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Paulo Nunes Arte Contemporânea

The work of the visual artist Nina Franco leads us into the depths of contemporary socio-political conflicts. She has had two solo exhibitions presenting her main series: "Soul Black" in Brazil and "Let Me Scream" in Ireland, as well as several group exhibitions in Brazil, Ireland, Greece and the United Kingdom.

The painting of Daniel Bum (Villena, Alicante, 1994) takes shape as a space for subjective elaboration, where the figure emerges not so much as a representational motif but as a vital necessity. The repetition of this frontal, silent character responds to an intimate process: painting becomes a strategy for navigating difficult emotional experiences—an insistent gesture that accompanies and alleviates feelings of loneliness. In this sense, the figure acts as a mediator between the artist and a complex emotional state, linking the practice of painting to a reconnection with childhood and to a vulnerable dimension of the self.

The strong autobiographical dimension of his work coexists with a formal distance that is not the result of conscious planning, but rather functions as a protective mechanism. Visual restraint, an apparent compositional coolness, and an economy of means do not neutralize emotion; instead, they contain it, avoiding the direct exposure of the traumatic. In this way, the tension between affect and restraint becomes a structural feature of his artistic language. Likewise, the naïve and the disturbing coexist in his painting as inseparable poles, reflecting a subjectivity permeated by mystery and unconscious processes. Many images emerge without a clearly defined prior meaning and only reveal themselves over time, when temporal distance allows for the recognition of the emotional states from which they arose.

The Long Night. Oil, acrylic, and charcoal on canvas. 160 × 200 cm. 2024.

The human figure appears frequently in your work: frontal, silent, suspended. What interests you about this presence that seems both affirmative and absent?

I wouldn’t say that anything in particular interests me. I began painting this figure because there were emotions I couldn’t understand and a feeling that was very difficult for me to process. This character emerged during a very complicated moment in my life, and the act of making it—and remaking it, repeating it again and again—meant that, during the process, I didn’t feel quite so alone. At the same time, it kept me fresh and connected me to an inner child who was broken at that moment, helping me get through the experience in a slightly less bitter way.

Santito. Acrylic and oil on canvas. 81 × 65 cm. 2025.

There is a strong affective dimension in your work, but also a calculated distance, a kind of formal coldness. What role does this tension between emotion and restraint play?

I couldn’t say exactly what role that tension plays. My painting is rooted in the autobiographical, in memory, and in situations I have lived through that were quite traumatic for me. Perhaps, as a protective mechanism—to prevent direct access to that vulnerability, or to keep it from becoming harmful—that distance appears unconsciously. It is not something planned or controlled; it simply emerges and remains there.

Night Painter. Acrylic on canvas. 35 × 27 cm. 2025.

Your visual language oscillates between the naïve and the unsettling, the familiar and the strange. How do these tensions coexist for you, and what function do they serve in your visual exploration?

I think it reflects who I am. One could not exist without the other. The naïve could not exist without the unsettling; for me, they necessarily go hand in hand. I am deeply drawn to mystery and to the act of painting things that even I do not fully understand. Many of the expressions or portraits I create emerge from the unconscious; they are not planned. It is only afterwards that I begin to understand them—and almost never immediately. A considerable amount of time always passes before I can recognize how I was feeling at the moment I made them.

Qi. Acrylic on canvas. 81 × 65 cm. 2025.

The formal simplicity of your images does not seem to be a matter of economy, but of concentration. What kind of aesthetic truth do you believe painting can reach when it strips itself of everything superfluous?

I couldn’t say what aesthetic truth lies behind that simplicity. What I do know is that it is something I need in order to feel calm. I feel overwhelmed when there are too many elements in a painting, and I have always been drawn to the minimal—to moments when there is little, when there is almost nothing. I believe that this stripping away allows me to approach painting from a different state: more focused, more silent. I can’t fully explain it, but it is there that I feel able to work with greater clarity.

Crucifixion. Acrylic on canvas. 41 × 33 cm. 2025.

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

I usually feel more comfortable leaving space for the unexpected. I am interested in uncertainty; having everything under control strikes me as rather boring. I have tried it on some occasions, especially when I set out to work on a highly planned series, with fixed sketches that I then wanted to translate into painting, but it was not something I identified with. I felt that a fundamental part of the process disappeared: play—that space in which painting can surprise even myself. For that reason, I do not tend to plan too much, and when I do, it is in a very simple way: a few lines, a plane of color. I prefer everything to happen within the painting itself.