A common link between art and design is the creation of forms and expressions. If, on the one hand, art asks us questions, challenges us and encourages us to question all knowledge, design strives to offer us solutions to improve our daily lives, appealing to the functionality and usefulness of objects and materials that make our daily lives more comfortable.The boundaries that separate art from design are often very thin, but we are not really interested in talking about boundaries, on the contrary. Functionality and subjectivity can go hand in hand to build beautiful, delicate and sharp objects in their reflective expression. There is no doubt that, when art and design meet, they generate a strong link between creativity and material, becoming a useful tool to dissect the senses.

Perhaps artistic creation finds its referent in design, if we add a third element to this feedback from both sources: sustainability. The artists we present below work with the recovery of materials and their transformation into aesthetic objects. The conscience at work in the pieces of Idoia Cuesta (Donostia, 1969). Represented by the Arancha Osoro Gallery; Luz Moreno Pinart (Madrid, 1989). Represented by the CLC ARTE gallery; Lúcia David (Portugal, 1966). Represented by Trema Contemporary Art Gallery; and Cova Orgaz (Bilbao, 1983), represented by Bea Villamarín Gallery, is the result of the synthesis between tradition and innovation. They have in common, among other things, the intuitive and handmade production, the respect for resources and the time of creation. Their works are the result of a desire to slow down the pace of life through traditional methods that speak of their origins. And through these processes, each in its own way, they invite us to ask ourselves: How do we understand the time, the matter and the space in which we live?

Idoia Cuesta. Abyssal. Fishing line. Variable dimensions, 2023.

Idoia Cuesta is an artist who combines the processes of basket weaving and textile art. She uses artisanal techniques and organic materials to create pieces that reflect the identity of the raw material, and her working methodology is mainly inspired by rural environments and respect for the environment. The fibers that give corporeality to her pieces are insufflated with a healing vocation and the desire to build a personal story about the utility of the work of art in any context. In her sculptures are perceptible minimalist personality and sensory comfort, characteristics that result from the alchemy that generates the relationship between basketry and textile, and that goes beyond the simply contemplative to question how much humanity resides in the complexity of the material.

Luz Moreno Pinart. Momo hajimete saku. Papier, platre, 11x7x7cm. 2023.

Luz Moreno Pinart specializes in design, scenography and textile fibers. Her works have a strong sculptural character. The volume created by the fine strands of knotted paper transforms each piece into a kind of net that connects the emotional with the vitality of the elements. This is the impression that her woven works evoke when, in front of them, we recall the curious metaphor that everything in life happens? Our existence takes place in moments that we cherish, and the fragility of memories rests on each woven knot. In her installations, the color red - in its variable values - is a metaphor for the intensity with which the artist has lived each moment. Her works are experiments that have evolved - as a deliberate archaeology of the most deeply rooted domestic elements - projecting into the future a visual production that hybridizes the codes of design, art and craftsmanship in search of an

Lúcia David. Babel Tower. Mdf board, glue, newspapers, fabric, plastic, wire,15x15x18 cm, 2023.

Lúcia David works with performance, installation and sculpture, with a particular interest in artist's books and the textuality of the artwork. She integrates collage and stitching techniques in her creations. In her works, the artist tells the story of the women's condition, and in this journey, she recalls the collective history of the status of women in her native country. The paper, the effervescent pulp of letters and the second levels outline the sides of a needle that is both piercing and healing, with which the artist creates, writes, embroiders and perforates. All these actions in this order and with the impulse to rescue the traditions that the matriarchs of each family have handed down to generations and generations of daughters. In general, her work exalts the imperfection, the rudeness and the simplicity of the actions that take place in domestic spaces and that, over the years, have been transferred to public life. Silence takes the objects related to domestic activities into her hands, but in an attempt to raise the tone of those silent whispers, the artist pours on paper all the contained value that her predecessors also left her as an heritage.

Cova Orgaz. Blue pigeon. Polychrome cardboard nº 3, 29x33x20 cm, 2023.

Cova Orgaz has redefined creation in a risky and courageous way by using cardboard as the main material for her sculptures. Challenging its ephemeral character and difficult conservation, the artist has broken the rules to show that cardboard can be as appreciated in sculptural production as any other element. Her ability to master and be carried away by cardboard has been achieved through trial and error, but without giving up. As a result of her fruitful efforts, today she surprises us with a repertoire of endearing figurative sculptures of striking realism. There are some hands in the world that correct, others that censor and some that model in desire what, after so much work, becomes reality. In this way, Cova Orgaz's cardboard sculptures, as if they were about to come to life, elevate the material into a category as valuable as that of bronze, marble or wood. Her persistence has shown that true artistic skill goes beyond conventional materials, redefining new possibilities that can define a path for sustainable creation.

Idoia Cuesta. Abyssal. Fishing line. Variable dimensions, 2023.

In addition to fusing tradition and contemporaneity, these artists also emphasize the usefulness of virtue in creating works that position themselves in the face of certain gender issues, preserving domestic duties, questioning the established, and the value of seeing creation as a conscious practice committed to society. They have gone beyond the aesthetic, creating sensory experiences, interwoven stories, reunions with the collective memory and an obvious connection with the essence of life and nature. And the result is here: Works that, in addition to being beautiful in form, are powerful in the content they translate; they establish - with their own invisible poetics - a balance that is necessary to fulfill the task of walking on a fine line, where aesthetics and the utility of the object coexist in perfect harmony.

Daniel Barrio. Guest artist of the third edition of OPEN BOOTH. Courtesy of the artist.

DESPIECE. PROTOCOLO DE MUTACIÓN

As part of the Art Madrid’26 Parallel Program, we present the third edition of Open Booth, a space conceived as a platform for artistic creation and contemporary experimentation. The initiative focuses on artists who do not yet have representation within the gallery circuit, offering a high-visibility professional context in which new voices can develop their practice, explore forms of engagement with audiences, and consolidate their presence within the current art scene. On this occasion, the project features artist Daniel Barrio (Cuba, 1988), who presents the site-specific work Despiece. Protocolo de mutación.

Daniel Barrio’s practice focuses on painting as a space for experimentation, from which he explores the commodification of social life and the tyranny of media approval. He works with images drawn from the press and other media, intervening in them pictorially to disrupt their original meaning. Through this process, the artist opens up new readings and questions how meaning is produced, approaching painting as a space of realization, therapy, and catharsis.

Despiece. Protocolo de mutación is built from urban remnants, industrial materials, and fragments of history, inviting us to reflect on which memories we inherit, which we consume, and which ones we are capable of creating. Floors, walls, and volumes come together to form a landscape under tension, where the sacred coexists with the everyday, and where cracks matter more than perfection.

The constant evolution of art calls for ongoing exchange between artists, institutions, and audiences. In its 21st edition, Art Madrid reaffirms its commitment to acting as a catalyst for this dialogue, expanding the traditional boundaries of the art fair context and opening up new possibilities of visibility for emerging practices.

Despiece. Protocolo de mutación emerges from a critical and affective impulse to dismantle, examine, and reassemble what shapes us culturally and personally. The work is conceived as an inseparable whole: an inner landscape that operates as a device of suspicion, where floors, walls, and volumes configure an ecosystem of remnants. It proposes a reading of history not as a linear continuity, but as a system of forces in permanent friction, articulating space as an altered archive—a surface that presents itself as definitive while remaining in constant transformation.

The work takes shape as a landscape constructed from urban waste, where floors, walls, and objects form a unified body made of lime mortar, PVC from theatrical signage, industrial foam, and offering wax. At the core of the project is an L-shaped structure measuring 5 × 3 meters, which reinterprets the fresco technique on reclaimed industrial supports. The mortar is applied wet over continuous working days, without a pursuit of perfection, allowing the material to reveal its own character. Orbiting this structure are architectural fragments: foam blocks that simulate concrete, a 3D-printed and distorted Belvedere torso, and a wax sculptural element embedded with sandpaper used by anonymous workers and artists, preserving the labor of those other bodies.

A white wax sculptural element functions within the installation as a point of sensory concentration that challenges the gaze. Inside it converge the accumulated faith of offering candles and the industrial residues of the studio, recalling that purity and devotion coexist with the materiality of everyday life. The viewer’s experience thus moves beyond the visual: bending down, smelling, and approaching its vulnerability transforms perception into an intimate, embodied act. Embedded within its density are sanding blocks used by artists, artisans, and laborers, recovered from other contexts, where the sandpaper operates as a trace of the effort of other bodies, following a protocol of registration with no autobiographical intent.

Despiece. Protocolo de mutación addresses us directly, asking: which memory do we value—the one we consume, or the one we construct with rigor? The audience leaves behind a purely contemplative position to become part of the system, as the effort of moving matter, documentary rigor, and immersive materiality form a body of resistance against a mediated reality. The project thus takes shape as an inner landscape, where floor, surface, and volume articulate an anatomy of residues. Adulteration operates as an analytical methodology applied to the layers of urban reality, intervening in history through theatrical and street advertising, architectural remnants, and administrative protocols, proposing that art can restore the capacity to build one’s own memory, even if inevitably fragmented.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

DANIEL BARRIO (1988, Cuba)

Daniel Barrio (Cienfuegos, Cuba, 1988) is a visual artist whose practice articulates space through painting, understanding the environment as an altered archive open to critical intervention. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts of Cienfuegos (2004–2008), specializing in painting, and later at the Madrid Film School (ECAM, 2012–2015), where he studied Art Direction. His methodology integrates visual thinking with scenographic narrative.

His trajectory includes solo exhibitions such as La levedad en lo cotidiano (Galería María Porto, Madrid, 2023), Interiores ajenos (PlusArtis, Madrid, 2022), and Tribud (Navel Art, Madrid, 2019), as well as significant group exhibitions including Space is the Landscape (Estudio Show, Madrid, 2024), Winterlinch (Espacio Valverde Gallery, Madrid, 2024), Hiberia (Galería María Porto, Lisbon, 2023), and the traveling exhibition of the La Rioja Young Art Exhibition (2022).

A member of the Resiliencia Collective, his work does not pursue the production of objects but rather the articulation of pictorial devices that generate protocols of resistance against the flow of disposable images. In a context saturated with immediate data, his practice produces traces and archives what must endure, questioning not the meaning of the work itself but the memory the viewer constructs through interaction—thus reclaiming sovereignty over the gaze and inhabiting ruins as a method for understanding the present.