Halloween party has become an international celebration where pumpkins, witches and skulls are part of our daily lives. We all know that on this day the end of summer is commemorated and, since ancient times, it has been celebrated as the last night of excesses before giving way to the sobriety and severity of winter. This is so in the Celtic tradition, a pagan holiday that in Galicia was always known as Samaín and has been celebrated since time immemorial. The influence of Christianity came to redefine many of these festivals to give them meaning in line with Catholic postulates, and from there was born All Saints Day or Day of the Dead, widely celebrated throughout the world. In fact, the word Halloween itself is an evolution of “All Hallow’s Eve”, which means “Eve of All Dead” But, why is this date celebrated in so many places in the world for different cultural traditions?

Gustav Klimt, “Morte e Vita”, 1905 (vía wikipedia)

For many, certain days of the year give rise to an accumulation of energies that open portals to new dimensions. The night of October 31st is one of those dates, and in many beliefs, there is the conviction that there is a union between the world of the living and that of the dead. This connection would allow bidirectional circulation between these realities and coexistence through multisensory experiences. For this reason, death is so present on Halloween and there is said that the dead come back to life at midnight today. We want to prepare for this celebration by taking a tour of the references to death, skulls and the world of darkness that some artists have made throughout their career.

Marina Abramovic, “Nude with the Skeleton”, 2002/2013 (vía moma.org)

Beyond the more traditional and classical painting, which often represents death to capture some relevant historical event, usually related to armed confrontations or connected with mythological accounts, and also beyond the moralistic resource of medieval representations of death as the great social class equaliser, the truth is that the use of elements related to the end of life is used numerous times as a benchmark of contrast, as opposed to values ​​associated with joy, energy or youth. We can say that even today, the authors reflect on the fear that this vital moment can be, or ironise, as it was done in the fifteenth century, on an inevitable fact to which we are all committed regardless of our position or status. Others, on the other hand, deal with this issue as a way to approach a painful stage, a kind of mourning that, through art, becomes therapeutic.

Damien Hirst, “For the Love of God”, 2007 (vía wikipedia)

Among the authors who use these resources as an ingredient to ironise the excesses of our society, we must include Damien Hirst, with his famous "For the Love of God", a piece that represents a human skull covered with 8,601 diamonds. To do this, Hirst made a titanium cast of a real skull from the 18th century and left the original denture. This 2007 piece was a revolution for the art world and was finally sold for 50 million pounds.

Maurizio Cattelan, “Bidibidobidiboo”, 2012, cortesía de Collezione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo (vía 20minutos.es).

Other artists like Cattelan propose works such as "Bidibidobidiboo", in which a suicide squirrel appears in a miniature stage, with a gun at his feet. According to the author, this piece represents the end of innocence and adolescent anguish that is lived in transitional stages, when it is difficult to adapt.

Okuda San Miguel

Grey Skull, 2018

17-ink hand-printed by Inkvisible Prints on 220 g pink fabriano paper

70 x 50cm

Death is also a reference to propose a contrast of elements with other positive values of our life. As a reminder and reflection on the resilience of the human being, some artists incorporate motifs such as skulls in their works in order to extol our spirit of overcoming and highlight the positive aspects that life can bring us, something that sometimes only comes to be appreciated taking awareness of the negative aspects. This is the case with Okuda, for example, who repeatedly uses his already iconic skull in many contexts.

Michael Zavros, “Phoebe is Dead/McQueen”, 2010 (vía skullsproject.wordpress.com)

We could put in this category some of the most famous pieces of Marina Abramovic, such as "Nude with skeleton", in which the artist proposes a serene dance with a skeleton in an open contrast between life and death.

In this same line, we find the work of other authors who dare to represent death as a way to face certain fears, such as the loss of a loved one, and this allows us to verify the fortune and happiness present.

Ron Mueck, “Dead Dad”, 1996 (vía qmayor.com)

Annie Leibovitz, “Susan Sontag”, 2004 (vía tembusu.nus.edu.sg)

Likewise, there are artists who address this issue from the desire to overcome some personal traumas and give way to a grieving process in which the pain is confronted directly instead of avoiding it. This is the case of Ron Mueck, who has come to represent his deceased father to face the sadness of his absence. This author's work always surprises with its great impact and the hyperrealism of its execution. For this particular piece, he came to use his father's real hair.

On the other hand, the photographer Annie Leibovitz made an extensive report of the death of her partner, Susan Sontag, something that helped her to go through this long and sentimental process.

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.