Within the online exhibition “Intimate spaces. Personal reflections” eight artists whose works are connected by the search of the intimate space live together. The images by Xurxo Gómez-Chao, Alfonso Zubiaga, Carlos Regueira, Soledad Córdoba, Rocío Verdejo, Andy Sotiriou, Ely Sánchez and José Quintanilla capture serene and solitary settings, empty spaces, open-plan rooms with which they invite personal reflection. The selection of images in this exhibition assembles around two areas: that of interior spaces and that of natural landscapes.

The individual is immersed in an everyday whirl leading him to a vital dilemma. A large part of our decisions is the fruit of the evolution of things, the imposition of standardised guidelines that surround us with routines of modernity, in the stream of the society of our time. However, the need to recover the essence of the human being is often imposed on this inertia. The return to spirituality, to inner balance, demands its place.

With the series "La Salita" the photographer Xurxo Gómez-Chao manages to give soul to walls and spaces in which the only outstanding element is an armchair. This way, he creates dreamlike environments within those interior landscapes where the absence of any other element confers a more intangible meaning.

Xurxo Gómez-Chao

Hotel Earle. Red room, 2016

Photography on paper Ilford

100 x 80cm

Xurxo Gómez-Chao

Hotel Earle. Golden room, 2016

Photography on paper Ilford

75 x 60cm

For her part, the lyrical scenarios of the series "Limbo" by Soledad Córdoba start from experienced and dreamy realities. Her images create visual poems, where silence, beauty, pain, fear or lack of communication are present and united by a fragile thread. Rocío Verdejo, likewise Soledad, introduces human figures in her compositions to unravel that tangle of feelings and emotions that gender violence implies. Her work "Crashroom" is a visual metaphor that manages to express the "not to exist inside".

Rocío Verdejo

Crashroom, 2014

Printing with pigmented inks on Hahnemühle paper on dibond

70 x 50cm

Natural environments also offer a multitude of possibilities to show those sensations even if there are no walls, no borders, no limitations. We find naked landscapes that manage to convey a deep balance like those by Andy Sotiriou, whose series "Snowscapes" captures snow-covered fields crossed by random lines of vegetation, or Alfonso Zubiaga, who interprets the relationship between the land and the sea with images of high-contrast and great serenity in his work "Binario". In this same way, José Quintanilla also uses cultivated fields in which, suddenly, an anonymous and washed-out construction emerges. His project "My house, my tree" conveys a deep nostalgia with retro aesthetic photographs and ochre-pastel tones.

Andy Sotiriou

Snowscape 29, 2014

Photography, mineral pigments on paper

60 x 60cm

Alfonso Zubiaga

Binario 1, 2017

Photography

55 x 74cm

José Quintanilla

Mi casa, mi árbol 15, 2015

Pigmented inks on Hahnemühle cotton paper mounted on cardboard museum

21 x 31cm

From a more dreamlike perspective, Carlos Regueira offers a dramatic vision of wooded landscapes. His "Paisajes pervertidos" reflect a morbid beauty, perhaps threatening, but at the same time reveals formal serenity and balance. These images emerge from the mist of memory and interpellate the viewer. In a similar line evolves the work of Ely Sánchez. In his series "Heridos" seeks to reveal that everything we see is an artifice, a translated image, credible but not real. On the other hand, in "Sueños geométricos" the artist focuses on the beauty of the lucid dream to experience what in real life is not feasible, thus releasing his most intimate identity.

Carlos Regueira

Malaysia, 2014

Photography

52 x 70cm

Ely Sánchez

Serie Heridos 1, 2014

Digital print

53 x 80cm

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.