Albert Bonet

Winner of the International Painting Prize in the Realism category at the latest edition of the FIABCN (Barcelona International Art Fair), Albert Bonet's work is characterized by an acid social criticism inspired by his closest surroundings. Through this interpretation of the world around him, this young artist shows both conceptual and technical maturity, which interferes with his work by playing with POP themes and with a markedly realistic style.

Artistically, he has been trained at the Barcelona Academy of Art. He has been selected in the DKV Young Art Contest ''Fresh Art'', where he was awarded an honorable mention at the Polytechnic University of Valencia (2015). This promising artist has two individual exhibitions to his credit, the last one last November at the Mutuo Gallery in Barcelona. He now exhibits for the first time in Art Madrid at the hands of Inéditad Galería (Barcelona).

Interview:

Tell us about your creative process

My creative process always starts with an idea, which I can come up with while walking down the street or in the bathroom of my colleague's house doing my business, and then I mature that idea for a few weeks, giving it shape, sketching a lot, and then I meet up with models, who are always people around me, my colleagues or people who are close to me, I do a photo session with them and then I edit those photos until I make a photographic montage that's quite close to the idea I had initially, always taking it to my own territory, adding social criticism, which, given the state of things in the world, is a lot of work. The last step is to paint in oils, give it shape, take the oils and lock yourself up at home until the idea comes out.

Albert Bonet

1984, 2022

Oil on canvas

162 x 130cm

What are you working on at the moment?

Right now I'm currently working on the piece I have behind me, which is a painting that I'm going to present at Art Madrid'22 with the gallery Inéditad, and the truth is that it's been quite a challenge because I have to finish it on time and I've locked myself up at home to paint for seven or eight hours a day until it's ready. Otherwise, it won't arrive in time for the catalogue and I have to make sure it gets there. Apart from that, this year is packed with a few urban art festivals with huge graffiti, a few exhibitions in a number of places. I'll keep you posted. There are several commissions for paintings, so the year is off to a great start, full of energy. Looking forward to it.

What do you expect from your participation in Art Madrid?

Exhibiting at Art Madrid is a dream come true for me. I've been locked up at home for a long time, mentally beating myself up, painting all day long, and to be able to take my work out of Barcelona for me is already a huge dream come true. It fills me with enthusiasm and energy to continue painting and I hope to give visibility to my work, above all outside Barcelona, and step by step, to be able to make a living from it.

Albert Bonet

La Duquesa de Sants, 2021

Oil on canvas

81 x 59cm

What inspires you when creating?

When it comes to creating, what inspires me most is my surroundings, all my surroundings. The places I go to, the objects I use every day in my house, my friends, my mates' houses, the city where I live, the cities I go to most frequently, everything that surrounds me. My everyday life is what inspires me when I create.

You are a multidisciplinary artist who started out in graffiti and tattooing. What have these two disciplines contributed to your work as a painter?

Graffiti, tattooing and painting are artistic facets that complement each other perfectly because you can apply concepts from each of them to the other. In the end they all have an individual magic that fills me a lot and I never want to stop doing any of them.

Albert Bonet participates for the first time in Art Madrid with Inéditad gallery, along side with Jaime Sancorlo, Jordi Diaz Alàma, Lautaro Oliver, Núria Farré y Raúl Álvarez Jiménez.

The practice of the collective DIMASLA (Diana + Álvaro) is situated at a fertile intersection between contemporary art, ecological thinking, and a philosophy of experience that shifts the emphasis from production to attention. Faced with the visual and material acceleration of the present, their work does not propose a head-on opposition, but rather a sensitive reconciliation with time, understood as lived duration rather than as a measure. The work thus emerges as an exercise in slowing down, a pedagogy of perception where contemplating and listening become modes of knowledge.

In the work of DIMASLA (Diana + Álvaro), the territory does not function as a framework but rather as an agent. The landscape actively participates in the process, establishing a dialogical relationship reminiscent of certain eco-critical currents, in which subjectivity is decentralized and recognized as part of a broader framework. This openness implies an ethic of exposure, which is defined as the act of exposing oneself to the climate, the elements, and the unpredictable, and this means accepting vulnerability as an epistemological condition.

The materials—fabrics, pigments, and footprints—serve as surfaces for temporary inscriptions and memories, bearing the marks of time. The initial planning is conceived as an open hypothesis, allowing chance and error to act as productive forces. In this way, the artistic practice of DIMASLA (Diana + Álvaro) articulates a poetics of care and being-with, where creating is, above all, a profound way of feeling and understanding nature.

In a historical moment marked by speed and the overproduction of images, your work seems to champion slowness and listening as forms of resistance. Could it be said that your practice proposes a way of relearning time through aesthetic experience?

Diana: Yes, but more than resistance or vindication, I would speak of reconciliation—of love. It may appear slow, but it is deliberation; it is reflection. Filling time with contemplation or listening is a way of feeling. Aesthetic experience leads us along a path of reflection on what lies outside us and what lies within.

The territory does not appear in your work as a backdrop or a setting, but as an interlocutor. How do you negotiate that conversation between the artist’s will and the voice of the place, when the landscape itself participates in the creative process?

Álvaro: For us, the landscape is like a life partner or a close friend, and naturally this intimate relationship extends into our practice. We go to visit it, to be with it, to co-create together. We engage in a dialogue that goes beyond aesthetics—conversations filled with action, contemplation, understanding, and respect.

Ultimately, in a way, the landscape expresses itself through the material. We respect all the questions it poses, while at the same time valuing what unsettles us, what shapes us, and what stimulates us within this relationship.

The Conquest of the Rabbits I & II. 2021. Process.

In your approach, one senses an ethic of exposure: exposing oneself to the environment, to the weather, to others, to the unpredictable. To what extent is this vulnerability also a form of knowledge?

Diana: For us, this vulnerability teaches us a great deal—above all, humility. When we are out there and feel the cold, the rain, or the sun, we become aware of how small and insignificant we are in comparison to the grandeur and power of nature.

So yes, we understand vulnerability as a profound source of knowledge—one that helps us, among many other things, to let go of our ego and to understand that we are only a small part of a far more complex web.

Sometimes mountains cry too. 2021. Limestone rockfall, sun, rain, wind, pine resin on acrylic on natural cotton canvas, exposed on a blanket of esparto grass and limestone for two months.. 195 cm x 130 cm x 3 cm.

Your works often emerge from prolonged processes of exposure to the environment. Could it be said that the material—the fabrics, the pigments, the traces of the environment—acts as a memory that time writes on you as much as you write on it?

Álvaro: This is a topic for a long conversation, sitting on a rock—it would be very stimulating. But if experiences shape people’s inner lives and define who we are in the present moment, then I would say yes, especially in that sense.

Leaving our comfort zone has led us to learn from the perseverance of plants and the geological calm of mountains. Through this process, we have reconciled ourselves with time, with the environment, with nature, with ourselves, and even with our own practice. Just as fabrics hold the memory of a place, we have relearned how to pay attention and how to understand. Ultimately, it is a way of deepening our capacity to feel.

The fox and his tricks. 2022. Detail.

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

Diana: Our planning is limited to an initial hypothesis. We choose the materials, colours, places, and sometimes even the specific location, but we leave as much room as possible for the unexpected to occur. In the end, that is what it is really about: allowing nature to speak and life to unfold. For us, both the unexpected and mistakes are part of the world’s complexity, and within that complexity we find a form of natural beauty.