About

Observing and translating the visible world has gradually led me to explore the limits and material condition of the image, within a permeable territory where representation and abstraction coexist. Through intention and chance, a path opens into questions of memory, perception and the spiritual dimension of experience.

I come from painting and drawing, and from a sculptural engagement with matter, guided by a sensibility rooted in the tradition of representational art. Observation, craft and a playful impulse towards experimentation remain fundamental. Portraiture is essential to this process: the face, the skin and its marks evoke questions of memory and identity, alongside the uncertainty inherent in every act of perception.

Paper participates in this enquiry. I manipulate, fold and crease it; I deposit charcoal, pigment or suspended paint onto its surface, while light reveals its volume and relief. The fold gradually acquired autonomy as a graphic and sculptural tool: edges receive the charcoal, shadow acts as a line, and the traditional support begins to generate visual information of its own. I seek a balance between intention and accident, precision and indeterminacy, allowing materials and process to shape the work. Drawing thus extends into matter, volume, light and space.

Along this path, I find a growing affinity with ancient bas-reliefs, whose interplay of carved surfaces and shifting light offers an important reference for my shadow drawings. My early fascination with temples and cathedrals, with their spatiality and rompimientos de gloria, also finds continuity in the Baroque conception of light as a means of evoking presence, transforming perception and opening up pictorial space. Chiaroscuro, depth and emergence find a physical correspondence in the relief of the paper.

My attention has gradually expanded beyond the face to a broader field of imagery: bodies, birds and animal groupings, alongside still lifes and references to myth, allow me to address dignity, conflict, death, regeneration and transcendence. The bird, in particular, has moved from observed figure to a vehicle for reflecting on our relationship with the visible and with what we intuit beyond it.

Omar Arráez, 2026

Omar Arráez (1982, Alicante, Spain)

Omar spent his childhood in the countryside, where relative solitude and daily contact with nature fostered an early inclination towards observation and contemplation. Drawing and modelling soon became his main forms of expression. Comics and, later, graffiti were also essential creative pursuits and an original introduction to figurative art.

During his formative years, he became familiar with traditional tools and techniques, exploring sculpture, woodcarving, ceramics and large-scale painting. His time in Rome allowed him to deepen his understanding of classical art and develop a particular dedication to oil painting and portraiture. Pictorial experimentation was equally integral to his development, giving rise to a diverse body of work shaped by a restless and independent spirit. He incorporated processes of gestural disruption and layered composition into his figurative work, exploring the expressive possibilities of the painted surface and its material qualities.

Throughout his career, he has alternated periods of nomadic living and changes of residence with regular returns to his family home in the countryside near Alicante. To adapt to these movements, he gradually focused his practice on drawing and working on paper, a medium easier to transport and store. These circumstances eventually encouraged the development of a distinctive way of constructing images that, over time, would become one of the defining features of his work.

With his Paper Portraits, he brought together his interests in sculpture, drawing and painting. Since then, he has exhibited his work in numerous international exhibitions and art fairs, further exploring the possibilities of paper as the material body of the artwork, pictorial intervention and cast shadows. The fold gradually acquired a growing autonomy, becoming an essential element of his artistic language.

During a recent period of his life in the province of Almería, he began drawing small birds, giving rise to the series Dust & Feathers- A Language of Birds. In this ongoing project, the bodies of birds allow him to address universal themes such as dignity, conflict, transformation, death, regeneration and transcendence. Through a distinctive interplay of paper, pigments and light, his work explores the possibilities of matter in constructing images that reconcile representation and abstraction.

Ramón Rico Carpena, 2026.