Diego Vallejo García

CONVERSATIONS WITH MARISOL SALANOVA. INTERVIEW PROGRAM. ART MADRID'25

Diego Vallejo García (Ávila, 1991) has a classical style in his treatment or composition, but with a contemporary theme. He studied Art History before studying Restoration and Conservation, which gives his projects a degree of knowledge that crosses from the theoretical to the practical. His work is representative of the tendency towards fragmented painting and the superimposition of realities, from the abstraction of colour fields to the painted photomontage of striking realism. This photographic exploration is taken to the realm of pictorial distortion.

The artist makes a generational portrait without individualising anyone, seeking to capture the collective personality of his generation, of the customs. He paints everything with oils, glazes and materials that he uses, thinking a lot about the conservation of the pieces and their durability.

Synergies. 2024. Oil on canvas. 114 x 195 cm.

What role does experimentation play in your creative process?

I think that experimentation in the conception of my work is fundamental, as it begins even before dealing with the actual subject matter of the painting. It begins in the configuration of the image, working on it through digital media such as Photoshop or Procreate. However, that image will only be a guide at the moment of painting; as the work progresses and accidents with the material arise, the image becomes detached from the painting, and it is the painting that finally takes control. That is why accidents occur in my painting in which elements are eliminated or appear that were not originally planned.

What are your references?

Well, I have many references. If we start with the classics, the first one I would mention is Velázquez, as well as all the paintings of the 19th century. As for the more current ones, they could be Rubén Guerrero, Ignacio Estudillo, Phil Hale, Sean Scully. They are painters who, in the end, deal with matter rather than image. I think this is the natural process of any figurative painter: at the beginning, trying to capture reality more or less faithfully, and with time you realize that what should take precedence over the image is the painting itself.

Fr Ltsch. 2024. Oil on canvas. 195 x 195 cm.

Why do your works have such an emphasis on nocturnality?

My work is not so much about nocturnality, but rather about light. What nocturnality allows me to do is to work with artificial light, and it gives me the possibility of treating light in its different temperatures and powers to create different sensations or different realities.

Do you feel more comfortable portraying individuals or crowds?

Portraying individuals or crowds pursues the same goal: to seek a portrait of my generation and society through customs and actions. How do I get this portrait without being individual, but collective? By eliminating the faces of the characters.

Nothing Is What It Seems. 2024. Oil on canvas. 146 x 195 cm.

What is the importance of movement, of action, in your works?

Movement and action are related to the previous question, because the movement of those individuals, crowds or characters in the work identifies them with a social movement and a collective identity. Also the movement that is really perceived in the work, of blurring, comes from trying to create a concept of character rather than a character in itself.

Daniel Barrio. Guest artist of the third edition of OPEN BOOTH. Courtesy of the artist.

DESPIECE. PROTOCOLO DE MUTACIÓN

As part of the Art Madrid’26 Parallel Program, we present the third edition of Open Booth, a space conceived as a platform for artistic creation and contemporary experimentation. The initiative focuses on artists who do not yet have representation within the gallery circuit, offering a high-visibility professional context in which new voices can develop their practice, explore forms of engagement with audiences, and consolidate their presence within the current art scene. On this occasion, the project features artist Daniel Barrio (Cuba, 1988), who presents the site-specific work Despiece. Protocolo de mutación.

Daniel Barrio’s practice focuses on painting as a space for experimentation, from which he explores the commodification of social life and the tyranny of media approval. He works with images drawn from the press and other media, intervening in them pictorially to disrupt their original meaning. Through this process, the artist opens up new readings and questions how meaning is produced, approaching painting as a space of realization, therapy, and catharsis.

Despiece. Protocolo de mutación is built from urban remnants, industrial materials, and fragments of history, inviting us to reflect on which memories we inherit, which we consume, and which ones we are capable of creating. Floors, walls, and volumes come together to form a landscape under tension, where the sacred coexists with the everyday, and where cracks matter more than perfection.

The constant evolution of art calls for ongoing exchange between artists, institutions, and audiences. In its 21st edition, Art Madrid reaffirms its commitment to acting as a catalyst for this dialogue, expanding the traditional boundaries of the art fair context and opening up new possibilities of visibility for emerging practices.

Despiece. Protocolo de mutación emerges from a critical and affective impulse to dismantle, examine, and reassemble what shapes us culturally and personally. The work is conceived as an inseparable whole: an inner landscape that operates as a device of suspicion, where floors, walls, and volumes configure an ecosystem of remnants. It proposes a reading of history not as a linear continuity, but as a system of forces in permanent friction, articulating space as an altered archive—a surface that presents itself as definitive while remaining in constant transformation.

The work takes shape as a landscape constructed from urban waste, where floors, walls, and objects form a unified body made of lime mortar, PVC from theatrical signage, industrial foam, and offering wax. At the core of the project is an L-shaped structure measuring 5 × 3 meters, which reinterprets the fresco technique on reclaimed industrial supports. The mortar is applied wet over continuous working days, without a pursuit of perfection, allowing the material to reveal its own character. Orbiting this structure are architectural fragments: foam blocks that simulate concrete, a 3D-printed and distorted Belvedere torso, and a wax sculptural element embedded with sandpaper used by anonymous workers and artists, preserving the labor of those other bodies.

A white wax sculptural element functions within the installation as a point of sensory concentration that challenges the gaze. Inside it converge the accumulated faith of offering candles and the industrial residues of the studio, recalling that purity and devotion coexist with the materiality of everyday life. The viewer’s experience thus moves beyond the visual: bending down, smelling, and approaching its vulnerability transforms perception into an intimate, embodied act. Embedded within its density are sanding blocks used by artists, artisans, and laborers, recovered from other contexts, where the sandpaper operates as a trace of the effort of other bodies, following a protocol of registration with no autobiographical intent.

Despiece. Protocolo de mutación addresses us directly, asking: which memory do we value—the one we consume, or the one we construct with rigor? The audience leaves behind a purely contemplative position to become part of the system, as the effort of moving matter, documentary rigor, and immersive materiality form a body of resistance against a mediated reality. The project thus takes shape as an inner landscape, where floor, surface, and volume articulate an anatomy of residues. Adulteration operates as an analytical methodology applied to the layers of urban reality, intervening in history through theatrical and street advertising, architectural remnants, and administrative protocols, proposing that art can restore the capacity to build one’s own memory, even if inevitably fragmented.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

DANIEL BARRIO (1988, Cuba)

Daniel Barrio (Cienfuegos, Cuba, 1988) is a visual artist whose practice articulates space through painting, understanding the environment as an altered archive open to critical intervention. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts of Cienfuegos (2004–2008), specializing in painting, and later at the Madrid Film School (ECAM, 2012–2015), where he studied Art Direction. His methodology integrates visual thinking with scenographic narrative.

His trajectory includes solo exhibitions such as La levedad en lo cotidiano (Galería María Porto, Madrid, 2023), Interiores ajenos (PlusArtis, Madrid, 2022), and Tribud (Navel Art, Madrid, 2019), as well as significant group exhibitions including Space is the Landscape (Estudio Show, Madrid, 2024), Winterlinch (Espacio Valverde Gallery, Madrid, 2024), Hiberia (Galería María Porto, Lisbon, 2023), and the traveling exhibition of the La Rioja Young Art Exhibition (2022).

A member of the Resiliencia Collective, his work does not pursue the production of objects but rather the articulation of pictorial devices that generate protocols of resistance against the flow of disposable images. In a context saturated with immediate data, his practice produces traces and archives what must endure, questioning not the meaning of the work itself but the memory the viewer constructs through interaction—thus reclaiming sovereignty over the gaze and inhabiting ruins as a method for understanding the present.