”My work deals with a double conceptual origin, the mystical and the concrete, and this dichotomy evolves between the spiritual search for a transcendental experience and the desire to emphasize the material presence as a concrete reality and not as an illusion”.

Fernando Daza (Seville, 1979), presents his latest creations in Art madrid, two diptychs and two individual works in square format, as well as some works made with medium format comic strips.

The Sevillian artist has participated in numerous individual and collective exhibitions in Madrid, Girona, Cadiz, Lisbon, Sardinia and Belgrade, and his work is present in public and private collections around the world, including the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Skopje and the National Art Gallery of Kosovo.

Fernando Daza

Círculo rojo, 2019

Paper cut by hand and glued on fabric

100 x 100cm

Fernando Daza

Círculo multicromático, 2019

Paper cut by hand and glued on fabric

100 x 100cm

Soraya Cartategui Gallery presents your work in Art for the second year in a row, what do you expect from this edition of the Fair, how do you think your work fits in Art Madrid?

In this occasion, the fair also celebrates the fifteenth anniversary of its foundation, I hope that all the expectations of diffusion and sale of the best contemporary art will be fulfilled. This fair has always been an excellent showcase for the work of the most outstanding artists on the current national and international art scene. Of course, the scenario offered by the city of Madrid and the fabulous glass hall of the CentroCentro Cibeles building is unbeatable for hosting one of the most relevant artistic events of the year in Spain.

From the beginning, I believe that this fair has managed to preserve its open, dynamic and avant-garde character. I also believe that it is a very lively fair, with a large attendance of public and especially of collectors, with very colorful and large format works. I think that because of these characteristics my work adapts quite well to the philosophy of the fair. In fact, in the last edition, my work debuted in this fair with Soraya's gallery and was very well received. I was very satisfied with my participation and I am sure I will be for this edition.

What artworks by Fernando Daza we will see in this edition of Art Madrid?

As a novelty, in this edition, I will present two diptychs and two individual works of square format. One of the diptychs is very powerful because of the oranges in the paper I have used, it is about two opposite curved forms on raw linen cloth. The other is a double composition of inverse black and white forms on a background, also inverse, in black and white. And the ones with a square support are two geometric compositions, one in the form of a cross and the other square on a background of indigo blue paper. You can also see in the stand some works made with torn comic paper in medium format, also square.

Fernando Daza

Monocromo beige 2, 2018

Paper cut with cutter and glued on wood

50 x 38cm

The delicacy with which you work the paper and the careful editing you prepare for your works is admirable, can you tell us in general terms what your method of working is, what the creative process is like before arriving at the final piece?

In my work, I use paper torn by hand into strips, which I later accumulate in an orderly manner and paste on the canvas, following a compositional scheme that I previously draw in pencil on the support. It is a work made in canvas on a frame, a two-dimensional support traditionally used for painting, although its character is clearly three-dimensional due to the disposition of the strips of paper; these are folded in half lengthwise and glued on the canvas on one of its sides, leaving the other side raised, slightly separated from the surface of the canvas. This method of adhering the paper to the canvas provides a raised and uneven plane. By means of a zenithal light projection, natural or artificial, we obtain a soft contrast between lights and shadows, which results in a rich and vibrant surface of visual textures. This is the most relevant formal feature of my plastic work and the distinctive feature that best characterizes it.

The origin of this creative technique came after a long period of research after I finished my degree in Fine Arts at the University of Seville. My last year of my degree I studied with an Erasmus grant at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Athens. There I started making some works with collages. The scholarship allowed us to spend the night in schools attached to the Faculty in many of the Aegean islands. We spent some time creating in these annexed schools, and since it was impossible to transport materials such as canvases, frames and paintings, I only carried a folder with papers, watercolors, inks and glue. It was here, in Greece, that my interest in collage and creation with paper began. When I returned to Spain, I wanted to continue my research in this field because I thought it was a technique that could be new compared to traditional painting techniques.

I became aware at that time of the possibilities that used paper could offer me as the main material for the creation of artworks in substitution of painting.

Fernando Daza

At that time, after finishing my studies in Fine Arts, my two older brothers, lawyers, inherited an agency that was owned by my father. One day I went to help them throw away a pile of boxes full of papers and old documents and I realized at that moment that I could use those papers for my creations. I took the boxes home and began a period of research over several years from which I obtained very fruitful results. I found several ways to accumulate the paper and create three-dimensional compositions. As time went by, I bought coloured drawing and engraving papers.

In general, your works are monochrome or bichrome, does this simplification of color have any special meaning?

My work has a double conceptual origin, the mystical and the concrete, and this dichotomy evolves between the spiritual search for a transcendental experience and the desire to emphasize the material presence as a concrete reality and not as an illusion. My compositions basically suggest approaches of suprematist origin; the search for pure sensibility through the predominance of nothingness and the representation of a universe without objects; orthogonal abstract structures, fundamental geometrical forms such as the square and the circle or simply monochrome backgrounds lacking figures. In this way, I intend to show states of maximum order with the minimum means and minimum complexity of elements and to pay more attention to the whole work than to the relationships between the singular parts.

Due to its apparent simplicity, I believe that my work hides an enigmatic presence that seems to resist interpretation and transmits spatiality and idealism to the viewer. The finishes and the material play a fundamental role in the search for balance and beauty, always in accordance with the moderation and placidity transmitted by the canvas of the support; of cotton or linen, raw and without primer. In the works where I use two colours, the chromatic contrast provides a mixed language result where the calm and subtlety of the light colours are broken by the vigour, power and firmness of the black, yellow, red and dark grey. This idea of contrariness and complementarity between opposites or inverses in the diptych works is very interesting to me because I think it harmonizes the composition.

Fernando Daza

Estructura negra sobre fondo blanco, 2018

Díptico. Papel cortado a mano y pegado sobre tela

100 x 130cm

As an artist, what do you feel committed to?

Mainly I feel committed to the idea of making an artistic work not only coherent with my needs and creative interests, but also with the moment I have to live. In my particular case, and I think I could say that the same thing happens to all my professional colleagues, there is an impulse and a permanent need to create, which are also basic and primary, that goes back, according to my conscience, to my earliest childhood, to the very origin of the use of reason. Parallel to this need, the resistance to devote myself to other professional tasks that had nothing to do with artistic practice was born and strengthened. For this reason I have focused on following this path, despite the many difficulties encountered against me. But it's such a gratification to be able to dedicate yourself to what you believe in and love that it's worth it just for that. In this sense, I could say that the first commitment is to myself.

The gallery Soraya Cartategui, based in Madrid and New York, participates once again, within the general program of Art Madrid, with a selection of works from the most recent work of the artists from Seville: Isabelita Valdecasas and Fernando Daza and the Thai artist Chamnan Chongpaiboon

At Art Madrid, we are delighted to present the fifth edition of our Curated Interview Program. On this occasion, independent curator and art critic Adonay Bermúdez (Lanzarote, Spain, 1985) takes the helm of the program, bringing his extensive international experience and sensitivity to contemporary artistic practices.

Under the title “Conversations with Adonay Bermúdez”, we will explore the work of eight artists featured in the 21st edition of the fair. This program offers the opportunity to engage with their creative processes, understand their sources of inspiration, and learn about their perspectives on contemporary art. In doing so, we reaffirm our commitment to facilitating encounters between the public and artistic practice, providing a space for reflection and dialogue during Art Week.

INVITED ARTISTS

Carmen Baena (Galería BAT Alberto Cornejo), Sergio Rocafort (Shiras Galería), Chamo San (Inéditad Gallery), Cedric Le Corf (Loo & Lou Gallery), Daniel Bum (CLC ARTE), Iyán Castaño (Galería Arancha Osoro), Julián Manzelli (Chu) (g · gallery), and DIMASLA (Diana + Álvaro) (Galería La Mercería)

DIALOGUE AS A CURATORIAL PRACTICE

The interviews included in this selection from Art Madrid’26 form a coherent map of shared concerns embedded in diverse practices, languages, and trajectories. Far from offering a homogeneous narrative, the voices of the eight artists reveal deep affinities around experience, time, and the relationship between artistic making and knowledge. In all cases, art is conceived less as the production of finished objects than as a situated process: a practice of attentiveness that unfolds in dialogue with territory, memory, and the artist’s own vulnerability..

One of the most significant recurring themes is the understanding of territory as an active agent. Whether it is the landscape of southern Spain, sand shaped by the tide, the everyday environment, or the exhibition space, the place ceases to function as a mere backdrop and becomes an interlocutor. This shift entails an ethics of listening: artists do not impose a predetermined form, but work from traces, marks, and temporal sedimentation. Territory thus appears as a living archive, carrying affective, geological, or cultural memories that the artistic gesture activates without closing them off.

Most of the practices presented here are grounded in open methodologies, where initial planning operates as a hypothesis rather than a fixed program. Chance, error, and the unexpected are not mistakes to be corrected, but productive forces that directly contribute to meaning-making. This openness does not imply a lack of rigor but represents a different mode of thought: an embodied knowledge that emerges from doing, repetition, and direct engagement with materials.

In this context, materiality becomes a form of knowledge. Marble and embroidery, pigments exposed to the elements, unstable geometries, silent pictorial surfaces, or repeated figures function as devices for sensitive knowledge. Materials do not illustrate concepts—they produce them. Through them, a constant tension is articulated between control and intuition, formal restraint and affective charge, which underpins both pictorial practices and research closer to performance or ecological concerns.

In response to contemporary acceleration, these works propose active pauses: spaces of duration, waiting, and suspension where the gaze can linger. Silence, stillness, and repetition operate as conditions for expanded perception, where the minimal and seemingly insignificant acquire existential density. In many cases, this slow temporality is connected to autobiographical processes or complex emotional states, making artistic practice a tool for subjective processing and care.

The interviews conducted for Art Madrid’26 highlight the importance of direct dialogue with the artist as a critical tool. This interview model does not seek to illustrate the work from the outside but accompanies its internal logic, allowing the thought sustaining it to emerge in the first person. Delving into the processes, doubts, and decisions that structure artistic practice not only enriches the understanding of the works but also activates a shared space for reflection, where art asserts itself as a form of living, situated, and constantly evolving knowledge.

Adonay Bermúdez. Critic and curator of the Art Madrid’26 Interview Program.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Carmen Baena (Benalúa de Guadix, Granada, 1967) is a multidisciplinary Spanish artist based in Murcia, where she has developed most of her career. A graduate in Fine Arts from the Polytechnic University of Valencia, Baena works with diverse techniques such as marble sculpture, embroidery on paper and canvas, and photographic experimentation, combining them in a profound investigation into the habitability of the body, time, and space.

Her work draws inspiration from nature and the landscapes of her childhood in Granada, creating spiritual and sensory landscapes that invite viewers into intimate, poetic, and enigmatic spaces. In recent series, color, circles, and stitched thread sutures combine to convey sensations of movement, memory, and emotion, generating immersive visual experiences. Carmen Baena has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Spain and abroad, and her work is included in public and private collections, including institutions in Murcia and Valencia, local town halls, and museums such as the Postal Museum of Madrid.

Sergio Rocafort (Valencia, 1995) holds a degree in Fine Arts and a Master’s in Artistic Production from the Universitat Politècnica de València. He has exhibited his work at Shiras Galería, the Centro Cultural La Nau, Centro del Carmen de Cultura Contemporánea, Galería 9, Las Naves, and Palacio Marqués del Campo, all in Valencia. He has also participated in art fairs such as the X Feria Marte in Castellón and the XXXII Estampa Fair in Madrid.

Rocafort has been a finalist in prominent competitions, including the III María Isabel Comengé Painting Biennial and the XX Painting Prize of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Carlos. He has received honorable mentions in the XXV National Painting Prize Fundación Mainel and the LXXX Premi Centelles, as well as awards such as the XXVII Ciutat d’Algemesí Painting Prize and the XIII Manolo Valdés Visual Arts Competition, among many others.

Chamo San (Barcelona, 1987) studied Fine Arts at the University of Barcelona and the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, but it was only after his formal training that he began to develop his own artistic language. As an illustrator, he has collaborated with numerous prestigious clients and brands over 15 years, and as an artist, he has published books and exhibited his work in solo and group exhibitions across Europe and North America.

His work moves between drawing and painting, often exploring self-publishing and graphic work. His production is characterized by a strong figurative style combined with technical and narrative explorations that originate in line and texture and gradually evolve toward brushwork and staining. His universe is nourished by notes made in small sketchbooks from direct observation of his surroundings and personal experiences.

Cedric Le Corf (Bühl, Germany, 1985) graduated with honors in 2009 from the École Européenne Supérieure d’Art de Lorient (France). He lives and works between Brittany and other European contexts, developing an artistic practice deeply connected to sculpture and reflections on the body, landscape, and memory. His work engages in constant research on materiality and image, where the anatomical and the territorial intertwine as metaphors for the human condition. Influenced by the Rhenish and Armorican legacy and confronted with the pathos of Grünewald (Baldung Grien), the hanged figures from Jacques Callot’s Les Misères de la Guerre, Ankou, and the dance macabre of Kernascléden, as well as the horrors of the Sobibor mass graves, Le Corf seeks, through adherence to a motif, to mitigate the weight of the subjects addressed in sculpture, painting, or printmaking.

He has undertaken several artist residencies, including the Fondation Dufraine in Chars, the Académie des Beaux-Arts (2016–2018), the Spitzberg Expedition Residency (2017), and was a resident at the Casa de Velázquez in Madrid (2018–2019) and the Miró Foundation in Palma de Mallorca (2019). In 2017, he was awarded the Georges Coulon Prize (Sculpture) by the Institut de France – Académie des Beaux-Arts. He has taken part in numerous solo and group exhibitions in France, Germany, Spain, and Belgium.

Daniel Bum (Villena, 1994) holds a degree in Fine Arts from the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV) and develops his pictorial practice within the contemporary framework of new figuration, drawing on influences from art brut, naïve aesthetics, manga, and urban art. His work creates a hybrid territory where disparate visual references coexist under a deeply personal and subjective narrative logic.

Far from mimetic representation, his canvases do not depict real scenes but reconfigure fragments of memory, emotional states, and thoughts through a direct and deliberately schematic visual language. In this symbolic construction, lived experience intertwines with fiction, generating images full of ambiguity and affective resonance. His compositions are inhabited by solitary figures, depicted frontally, with absent gazes and minimal gestures emphasizing vulnerability. These seemingly approachable characters reveal, however, an enigmatic dimension marked by latent tension. This ambivalence—between tenderness and unease, the familiar and the inexplicable—is a key expressive feature of his work.

He has participated in exhibitions and art fairs such as Obertura Carabanchel 2025 and Apertura Madrid 2025 alongside the Valencian gallery CLC Arte, and in Zokei with CLC Arte. In 2024, he held his first solo exhibition, Mamá, estoy bien, in Valencia, and participated in Detrás de la Piel at the FIC Contemporary Art Festival in Villena.

Iyán Castaño (Oviedo, 1996) graduated in Fine Arts from UPV/EHU (2022) and is a master printmaker in engraving and printmaking techniques from EAO (2018). His practice explores the relationship between nature, sea, and territory, primarily through painting and installation. He has received the Asturias Joven Prize in Visual Arts, Second Prize in the XX Casimiro Baragaña National Contemporary Art Competition, and production grants from Caja Rural and the Gijón City Council, among others. His work is part of the Artistic Heritage of the Spanish Royal Family and the collection of the Museo de Bellas Artes de Asturias, as well as other institutional collections in Europe and the Americas. He has been a finalist in competitions such as the LVI International Art Competition of Luarca, Nicanor Piñole, and Acor Castilla y León.

He has held solo exhibitions at spaces including Sala Borrón, Casa de Cultura de Llanes, Espacio Cultural El Liceo, Galería Arancha Osoro, Kultur Leioa, and Sala Lai..., and has participated in fairs such as Estampa and Art Madrid. His work has been curated by Natalia Alonso, Luis Feas, Santiago Martínez, Ainhoa Janices, and Eliza Southwood, and he has undertaken artistic residencies in Spain and Ecuador.

Julián Manzelli (Chu) (Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1974) is a multidisciplinary visual artist whose practice explores the intersection of urban life, science, and nature through geometric-expressionist constructions oscillating between figurative and abstract. He conceived the studio as an experimental laboratory, developing work in painting, sculpture, object-making, printmaking, and public space through muralism and interventions. He currently lives in Barcelona.

He studied at the Faculty of Architecture, Design, and Urbanism at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA), where he taught for over twelve years. Since 1998, he has been part of the DOMA collective, pioneers of conceptual urban art in Latin America, with works included in international collections and museums such as MoMA (New York), MALBA (Buenos Aires), MAR (Rio de Janeiro), and MARCO (Rosario).

In his independent career, he has exhibited at institutions such as MASP (São Paulo), MARCO (Monterrey), La Casa Encendida (Madrid), and CEART Fuenlabrada (Madrid), establishing himself as a key figure in contemporary art combining conceptual rigor and aesthetic exploration across multiple media and spaces.

DIMASLA (Valencia, 2018), the collective formed by Diana Lozano and Álvaro Jaén, develops its practice around reflections on inhabiting the world more harmoniously, understanding reality as an interconnected network of beings, spaces, and objects. Inspired by authors such as Nancy, Bachelard, and Dewey, their work is based on co-creation with the environment, where elements such as atmosphere, flora, fauna, and seasonal change act as active agents. Projects like Mono are not aware of this direct relationship between painting and landscape.

Trained in Fine Arts with a Master’s in Artistic Production from UPV, complemented by residencies in Italy and Chile, their trajectory has been recognized with awards such as the 1st Painting Prize from the University of Murcia (2025), the Arte en la Casa Bardín Prize (2023), and grants from the Spanish Ministry of Culture (2020). They have held solo exhibitions in Valencia and Alicante, participated in fairs such as Art Basel Miami Beach and Untitled Miami, and were part of the RinkoKaku Project in Japan. Their work is included in collections such as the Generalitat Valenciana, DKV, Banc Sabadell, Fundación Gabarrón, and the University of Murcia.

Adonay Bermúdez. Independent curator and art critic.

ABOUT ADONAY BERMÚDEZ

Adonay Bermúdez (Lanzarote, Spain, 1985) has curated exhibitions for MEIAC (Spain), Centre del Carme (Spain), Casa África (Spain), Centro Cultural de España en México, Museo Barjola (Spain), the National Museum of Costa Rica, Sala Díaz (USA), CAAM (Spain), the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design of Costa Rica, Centro de Cultura Contemporánea Condeduque (Spain), the Instituto Cervantes in Rome (Italy), Bòlit Centre d’Art Contemporani (Spain), DA2 (Spain), the X Biennale di Soncino (Italy), Artpace San Antonio (USA), MUDAS – Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Madeira (Portugal), Centro de Cultura Digital (Mexico), TEA Tenerife Espacio de las Artes (Spain), the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Quito (Ecuador), and ExTeresa Arte Actual (Mexico), among others.

He served as Director of the International Video Art Festival Entre Islas (2014–2017), was a guest curator of PlanoLisboa 2016 (Portugal), a member of the Scientific Committee of Over The Real International Videoart Festival (Italy, 2016, 2017, and 2018), curator of Contemporary Art Month San Antonio (Texas, USA) in 2018, collaborating curator at the César Manrique Foundation (Spain, 2019–2024), curator of INJUVE 2022 (Spanish Government), and Artistic Director of the 11th Lanzarote Art Biennial 2022/2023.

More recently, he has been awarded the Line 2 Curatorial Competition of Casal Solleric, Palma de Mallorca (Spain, 2020), the Cultural Projects Competition Gran Canaria Espacio Digital (Spain, 2020), the Artistic Research Grant from CAAM – Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno (Spain, 2020), Komisario Berriak at Tabakalera (Spain, 2021), the 5th Curatorial Competition of the Valencian Community (Spain, 2023), and the 4th Curatorial Open Call of Nebrija University (Spain, 2025).

He is currently an art critic for ABC Cultural and Revista Segno. He has given lectures and workshops at the Universidad del Atlántico (Colombia), MACRO Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Roma (Italy), Complutense University of Madrid (Spain), and the Universidade da Madeira (Portugal), among others. He has also received artist-in-residence grants from The Window Paris (France), Foksal Gallery (Poland), Les Abattoirs (France), SOMA (Mexico), The Casa Chuck Residency (USA), Plataforma Caníbal (Colombia), and No Lugar (Ecuador), among others.