For the second consecutive year, Liquitex, a world reference brand in professional acrylic, joins Art Madrid as a sponsor, and in its desire to empower the artist and support contemporary creation, it will award a prize in material from the brand valued at €1,000 that will be granted to one of the artists participating in the fair who work with acrylic in their pieces.

The Award decision will take place on February 14 and will be communicated through our Instagram channel. To choose the winner on this occasion, they are consulting with the public through this online form in which they can vote for one of the three finalists pre-selected by the brand: Moisés Yagües, Lino Lago, or Daniel Sueiras. They will also raffle off a set of Liquitex products and tickets to our fair to encourage public voting.

Learn more about the brand and its actions as part of its commitment to the environment and the artistic community:

At Liquitex, they believe in the power of artistic expression to create a better world where artists and communities can thrive: a world where more is given back than received and social and environmental value is created.

They realize that change can be challenging, but they take immediate action to make their vision a reality. Empowering the community, innovating across all of its products and packaging, and integrating sustainability into each of its practices, maintaining the high-quality product offering artists expect, and collectively leaving a more positive footprint for everyone's future.

EMPOWERING ARTISTS

Desde Liquitex confían firmemente en la fórmula “empowering artists” como la mejor forma de conseguir sus objetivos, asegurando un mundo en el que las futuras generaciones puedan crear con garantías, dando prioridad a los espacios seguros From Liquitex, they firmly trust the formula "empowering artists" as the best way to achieve their objectives, ensuring a world in which future generations can create with guarantees, prioritizing safe spaces for artistic expression. In addition, they base this empowerment of emerging talents on their residency programs and the different prizes they award.

SAFE MATERIALS

Another fundamental pillar to understand the Liquitex brand is its continuous effort to provide safe artistic materials, certified by the Art and Creative Materials Institute, Inc., seeking to safeguard the safety of artists, as well as innovation to achieve a more positive impact on the environment. From the packaging to the product's composition, Liquitex is fully committed to betting on sustainable and innovative solutions that maintain the quality and performance of the product, leaving no trace other than that of the paint in our hands.

The progress hasn't stopped since 2017, with the introduction of cadmium-free Heavy Body colors, the first cadmium alternative with truly equivalent performance to paints containing heavy metal, all thanks to in-lab innovation. This year 2023, progress continues thanks to the partnership with Waste2Wear, pioneers in solutions for innovative plastic recycling; they use blockchain technology to offer 100% traceable and sustainable textiles. As part of the sustainability program, "A Positive Mark", the brand will launch a new line of canvases made from 100% recycled plastic bottles, identified with the SUSTAIN label, being the first items in this new Liquitex category. , in the coming months, they will be available in art establishments.

The brand will continue its vision of launching more sustainable materials within its "Professional" range, integrate sustainability practices throughout its activity, and contribute its constant support to the artist community.

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.