PARALLEL PROGRAM CITY TERRITORY. ART MADRID'25

OPEN BOOTH X NEBRIJA UNIVERSITY

Art Madrid, in its 20th edition, presents a Parallel Program dedicated to the conceptual theme City Territory. The city, understood as a permeable organism and a topography of shared meanings, serves as the stage for a thoughtful exploration of the impact of art on the spaces we inhabit.

The second edition of Open Booth stands out as a platform for emerging talent, reinforcing its commitment to supporting the artists of the future. This year, Open Booth x Nebrija University offers students from the Fine Arts program the opportunity to experience an art fair firsthand, connecting them with collectors, curators, and gallerists while providing a space to showcase their work within the professional art circuit.

As part of this initiative, undergraduate students in Fine Arts at Nebrija University present Bajotierras/Sobrenubes (DEL OSO, UN PELO), a collective installation exploring the relationship between the city and its surrounding territory. Led by professor and artist Luis Gárciga Romay, and supported by Liquitex, the project investigates -through geometry, landscape, and scale- how environments transform and how we navigate the intersection between the urban and the natural.

With the backing of Liquitex, a leading brand in professional acrylics, Open Booth x Nebrija University continues to establish itself as a space for experimentation and visibility, bringing young artists closer to both the public and key figures in the art world.

Boceto para Bajotierras/Sobrenubes (DEL OSO, UN PELO). Ximena Couttolenc. Cortesía Universidad Nebrija.

BAJOTIERRAS/SOBRENUBES. (DEL OSO, UN PELO)

The project proposed by the students of the Fine Arts program at Nebrija University is a kind of TOTAL BOOTH, a cohesive space that, through collaboration and the exchange of ideas, reflects the collective potential of all participants, elevating the artwork to a new dimension."

Starting from the breadth and depth of the concepts of TERRITORY and CITY, they approach these notions in alliance with the two established poles while remaining open to the expressive possibilities of other scales and combinations that these concepts may evoke. Territory is the geopolitical manifestation of a way of inhabiting space, it is both here and there, shaping how life is organized. It is the stage where resources and hierarchical powers are dictated, interpreted, and transformed.

Boceto para Bajotierras/Sobrenubes (DEL OSO, UN PELO). Cortesía Universidad Nebrija.

Territory is not separate from the place of our emotions, exaltations, doubts, and hopes. Nor do its border confines distance themselves from the most abstract geometric expression. Sometimes a line delimits and marks, creates a corner, an inclined plane; it evokes an emotion, thus generating a vital region. The universality of geometry allows us to position, locate, confront, critique, and propose. Lines, areas, volumes are imbued with colors according to the contexts we live in and the paradigms we uphold. The horizon line and our existential perspectives are interrupted by the natural or built landscape, bringing to our feet a shore and, with it, floating objects, between drift and design. A controlled avalanche, sometimes in its causes, at other times, in its consequences.

Boceto para Bajotierras/Sobrenubes (DEL OSO, UN PELO). Cortesía Universidad Nebrija.

WHAT SHAPES US. Conformity and Re-formation

The city is divine and underground, buried and celestial, made simultaneously of the lightness of the superfluous and the dense gravity. It lives, sometimes hibernates, but always promises. Between conformity and ambition, we achieve something: a good corner between the terrace and the basement, a good "from here onward".

The Open Booth is organized into four interconnected spaces: Avalanche, inspired by the mountains and the river, with objects shaped by the passage of time; Constelar, where floating lamps evoke memory and aspirations; Mar(ejada) Madrid, a conceptual shore designed for contemplation and dialogue; and A Bear Called Tergiverso, a series of pieces that reinvent the city as an ever-changing organism.

The following participants are representing Universidad Nebrija in Open Booth: Blanca Lanaspa, Héctor Mendoza, Diana Díaz, Ainara Asensio, Rita Gentile, Ximena Couttolenc, Laura Nogales, Michelle Camhi, María Lucía Patiño, Andrea Bornstein, Andrea Manjón, Alis Qiu, Carlota Arias, Inés López, Jaime Muñoz, Marialex Arcaya, Melina Fernández, Mónica Escartín, Rebeca Rodríguez, and Belén Sierra.

Boceto para Bajotierras/Sobrenubes (DEL OSO, UN PELO). Cortesía Universidad Nebrija.

In Madrid, the Fine Arts students at Nebrija University question and propose the MATERIALITY and MATERIALS of a constellation where the notions of territory and city coexist with great presence, yet with a subtle protagonism. Procedures, methods, processes; the ways in which we transform the world into a very specific place, more diverse than a country, unfolding beyond a map or a file, yet portable in a pocket. Monuments, miniatures, the human scale. Space overflows and synchronously fits into a single verse. A verse is matter resistant to gravity and time, capable of becoming more than earth and more than cloud, managing to metamorphose and mimic what we are made of.

Luis Gárciga. Curator

Boceto para Bajotierras/Sobrenubes (DEL OSO, UN PELO). Cortesía Universidad Nebrija.

Thanks to initiatives such as these, students not only hone their technical and conceptual skills, but also develop fundamental competences for their professional future in the world of art, design and the creative industries. Through teamwork, the exploration of artistic references, the promotion of creativity and critical thinking, they are prepared to face the challenges of their discipline with a broad and multidisciplinary vision.

From Nebrija University, we would like to express our most sincere thanks to Amaya Hernández, director of the Degree in Digital Design and Multimedia, and Lorena Palomino, director of the Degree in Fine Arts, for their invaluable support and commitment to this project.

Prof. Dr. Pablo Álvarez de Toledo Müller Director of the Art Department Faculty of Communication and Arts. University of Nebrija

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.