Interview to Nada Bien (b. 1992), lives and works in Madrid, Spain.
Artist Ramón Duerto Orlando, known by his artistic name Nada Bien, welcomes us at five p.m. on a Tuesday in August. He opens the metal door of his studio and invites us into a large space divided in two: workshop and home. Immediately jumping into conversation, a little erratic, with kind, dreamy eyes, he leads us through his paintings and introduces us to Parra, his dog, “the real Juan Parra,” he says, and to his cat, Meren, “short for merengue.” Among the works are a moon-shaped harp, rows of photographs of his grandparents and other ancestors, piles of books, vintage mirrors, coats of arms from Basque towns and, in the courtyard, an iron structure painted orange and a small, perfectly circular inflatable pool.
Somewhere between draftsman and painter, tattoo artist, sculptor, writer, and experimental musician, Nada Bien feels in the limbo of quite a few things. In his practice, he reinterprets symbols typical of pop culture - cowboys, magicians, fantastical creatures, and the like - and seeks to give them a new, ironic meaning, using a “pastel-toned” language that softens the more critical dimension of his message. Yet the artist seems to want to make it clear that he mainly creates for the simple pleasure of doing so, and that he does not see art as being particularly different from walking, talking, or cooking a pisto. With a touch of Dadaism, all he says seems to hover somewhere between truth and fiction, joke and seriousness: “In the end, what interests me is reality. I don’t know whether I understand it, but I do know that I like to play with it: to reconstruct it, deconstruct it, or simply copy it.”
Luckily, throughout our conversation, all good.
Artist Ramón Duerto Orlando, known by his artistic name Nada Bien, welcomes us at five p.m. on a Tuesday in August. He opens the metal door of his studio and invites us into a large space divided in two: workshop and home. Immediately jumping into conversation, a little erratic, with kind, dreamy eyes, he leads us through his paintings and introduces us to Parra, his dog, “the real Juan Parra,” he says, and to his cat, Meren, “short for merengue.” Among the works are a moon-shaped harp, rows of photographs of his grandparents and other ancestors, piles of books, vintage mirrors, coats of arms from Basque towns and, in the courtyard, an iron structure painted orange and a small, perfectly circular inflatable pool.
Somewhere between draftsman and painter, tattoo artist, sculptor, writer, and experimental musician, Nada Bien feels in the limbo of quite a few things. In his practice, he reinterprets symbols typical of pop culture - cowboys, magicians, fantastical creatures, and the like - and seeks to give them a new, ironic meaning, using a “pastel-toned” language that softens the more critical dimension of his message. Yet the artist seems to want to make it clear that he mainly creates for the simple pleasure of doing so, and that he does not see art as being particularly different from walking, talking, or cooking a pisto. With a touch of Dadaism, all he says seems to hover somewhere between truth and fiction, joke and seriousness: “In the end, what interests me is reality. I don’t know whether I understand it, but I do know that I like to play with it: to reconstruct it, deconstruct it, or simply copy it.”
Luckily, throughout our conversation, all good.
Earliest memories of painting and art in general?
The usual: in preschool and primary school, I drew and painted. I suppose the normal thing is to stop at some point, right? Well, I just kept going.
My family helped me too. My grandmother, for example, gave me an easel when I was five, which I still have, and I used to do portraits and caricatures with my uncle. Art became something familiar, a way to entertain myself and spend the time.
I drew constantly. At school, my friends and I were “the ones who drew.” We read Mortadelo y Filemón, Marsupilami, The Pink Panther… I especially remember one comic that inspired me a lot, about a kind of Chinese monkey prince who went on adventures. Something like an Asian Odyssey. I felt a very strong connection to that comic: the story, the drawings, the way it combined all kinds of symbolism… It mixed animism, esotericism, and martial arts, which I was really into at the time. I read lots of other things, but nothing affected me as much or stayed as vividly in my memory. Afterwards, I lost it.
During my preadolescence and adolescence, I became less interested in art. Drawing became more of a way to pass the time, especially in class. The usual thing: the teachers would be talking and, instead of taking notes, I’d be drawing in the book, on my hands, everywhere. I guess I wasn’t paying much attention.
What attracted you was the feeling that you could escape from reality?
Yes, exactly. I suppose escapism and freedom are similar things. For me, art was a way of freeing my mind and accessing places I couldn’t reach in the real world. And then there was the simpler side of it: entertaining myself, passing the time.
Is that what you’re still looking for in art today?
On a more basic level, I think so. Art is a way of being with myself and having a good time. Like someone who enjoys singing, running, or cleaning. Just any kind of practice.
During my preadolescence, I left all that somewhat behind. Although I think I only stopped painting on a conscious level. I believe that once you start thinking creatively, imagining things, and paying attention to certain shapes, shadows, or lights, that way of seeing things stays with you. You can be playing basketball or working as a shop assistant and that can also be a way of making art.
Obviously, it’s not the same thing, but it’s connected: painting, going for a walk, music, taking the subway… There are parts of everyday life, of simply being alive and interacting with the world, that are also a way of practicing a creative activity. It’s kind of like paying full attention to what you’re doing.
Afterwards, obviously, art becomes many more things once you start sharing it with other people. For me, that change came during my Audiovisual Studies degree. Until then, even though I drew all the time, I never really thought much about what I was creating or what I wanted to do. It was pure automatic drawing.
You describe your art as a polysemous mantra. Could explain a little more what you mean by that?
It has to do with how I feel when I create: I try to be present in what I’m doing while, at the same time, allowing myself to be guided by my body and my mind. It’s a way of accepting whatever comes into my head and trusting that this is what I want to convey.
For example, I love walking. A lot of the time I go out without any kind of distraction - no phone, no music, nothing - and that moment becomes almost like an active meditation. I walk, random thoughts come to me, and a kind of thread starts to form in my mind. I’m not thinking about specific things, like what I have to do tomorrow or what my friend said to me the other day. If one of those thoughts comes up, I accept it, but then I try to let it go.
With art, I’m looking for a similar state, a kind of automatic meditation. I let my mind flow and, through whatever emerges, a voice or a narrative begins to take shape. That’s what I mean when I talk about a mantra.
Something along the lines of revealing the unconscious?
Yes, exactly. When I draw, sometimes I have specific figures in mind, while other times they simply emerge spontaneously. For example, I love cows. I’ve drawn them so much that I think they’ve reached a point where their image is, in some way, internalized within me. I start drawing, and they appear. I’m not consciously thinking that I want to draw one, but it happens.
It’s similar with painting. I develop methods that interest and amuse me, and once I’ve internalized them, I try to let myself go. I create and, from time to time, I step back and take perspective: I rearrange things, bring them together, or keep generating. That allows me to keep my mind in that kind of mantra. Stable within a path of creation.
If I get blocked, it’s usually before I start. It’s like going for a walk: if I get stuck, it’s because I haven’t gone outside. Once I’m walking, I don’t stop. Maybe I like the shade of a tree and sit down for a while, but that’s also part of the walk. I feel the same way about painting, writing, or drawing.
Your Instagram highlights contain very varied references: 80s fashion, a 19th-century engraving, lots of contemporary painting… Is there a common thread connecting the images that catch your attention?Good question. I don’t know. I suppose what I’m looking for is for them to convey something to me, for them to genuinely affect me, whether aesthetically or narratively. A kind of attraction. Basically, that’s what I’m looking for: attraction.
If I sat down and really thought about all those references, I’d probably find one or several ideas they have in common. Just from a quick analysis, I’d say I’m very interested in mystery. Also in a certain kind of naivety, but one with depth: things that seem simple or innocent, but contain nuances that only reveal themselves when you spend some time looking at them.
Your references often feature images of children and fairy tales, drawing on a distinctly childlike visual universe. There’s something similar in your own work: you use a very soft, pastel-coloured aesthetic to address subjects that can be more difficult, social, or even critical. Is that contrast something that interests you?
Absolutely. I’m interested in duality in general: how the existence of something generates its opposite.
I think that if you approach existential, social, or political subjects through a naïve aesthetic - which would, in principle, be their opposite - you create connections between the two that can be very revealing. When you place two extremes on the same plane, you can see the paths that connect one to the other. I find that fascinating.
What topics have you been investigating lately?
In general terms, I’d say that the title of the solo exhibition I did with Pradiauto in 2023 sums up my interests quite well: I Am a House Full of People. Everything I create is directly connected to the people I’ve crossed paths with, the ones I’ve met or loved, as well as the ones I only know through their work.
Right now, I’m exploring several subjects: duality, ways of telling stories, nature, the everyday, death and mourning… Boundaries, memory, the unconscious… And perhaps fluids as well.
There’s a bucolic quality to many of your works.
Yes, I think it has a lot to do with the limitations of living in a city like Madrid when it comes to enjoying nature. I suppose the desire for connection that I feel ends up flooding my mind and my ideas too. Without even realizing it, I find myself drawing animals, landscapes, trees, plants, flowers…
I imagine there’s also an element of romanticism and longing in that relationship. I don’t know if it’s particularly healthy, but well, it is what it is.
Among the figures that repeatedly appear in your work, there are wizards, magical beings, cowboys… Do you include them symbolically?
Whenever I use a figure, I’m more interested in its symbolism than in its aesthetics. I enjoy appropriating canonical or pop-cultural images that are deeply embedded in the collective imagination, and changing their context or reimagining them.
With cowboys, for example, I became interested in images of encounters between gay men in northern Mexico and California, dressed as cowboys and dancing with one another. I find that contrast incredible: between the classic image of the cowboy - riding a horse, tending to cattle, smoking and spitting - and that same figure transported into a completely different part of his life.
I try to do something similar in my work: to take an image that belongs to a very specific context, loaded with attributes and meanings, and place it somewhere where, at first, it doesn’t really fit. Like putting a computer engineer to work in a Chinese nail salon and seeing what happens. Basically, creating those kinds of strange situations.
In reality, I have loads of characters and scenes in my head, and I create little stories around them. I want my works to have a certain narrative quality, even the more abstract ones, and for those stories not to simply perpetuate a dominant ideology or the status quo. My aim is to take those images that we all know and give them a different meaning, which is my own.
Do you think your studies in Audiovisuals have influenced the importance you place on storytelling in your practice?
Yes. In fact, I think I kept drawing and painting because during my degree I realized that, to make a comic, all you need is a pencil and a sheet of paper. You don’t have to get a whole bunch of people involved or raise millions of dollars like you would to make a film. You draw the panels and, just like that, you’re creating images, a story, a sense of temporality.
I also discovered that I was more interested in that kind of temporality than in the one you find in cinema. In a film, the director sets the pace; in a comic, everything is laid out in front of you, and you decide where to start, where to stop, whether to go back or jump ahead. Painting and ceramics have something similar: they allow for a certain kind of mental interactivity. It’s a bit like those “Choose Your Own Adventure” books. You choose what to focus on and, in a way, how you construct the story.
I really like that way of understanding narrative, and I think it has influenced the rest of my practices: writing, drawing, painting…
Cowboys can be seen as a symbol of a fairly traditional type of masculinity, and I suppose the images you mentioned also caught your attention because of a certain subversion of their gender roles. On Instagram, you often refer to yourself using feminine forms. Rather than talking explicitly about these issues, it seems that you allow yourself a certain ambiguity, aesthetically as well. Do you have these ideas in mind?
Yes, absolutely. The way I refer to myself varies quite a lot. I suppose I’m basically cis, but I’ve never considered myself a very masculine person. Nor have I considered myself gender-neutral. I’m somewhere in between.
I’ve felt a little bit in that limbo since I was a child. I’ve never been entirely comfortable being a boy, although I haven’t been completely uncomfortable with it either. That’s why sometimes I use gender-neutral, feminine, or masculine language.
I don’t want to appropriate the experiences of communities I’m not part of, but I do feel very aligned with feminism and queer theory. They’re ideas that I connect with and that I’ve internalized quite naturally over time.
I suppose those ideas ultimately permeate my practice. If I’m reading about or thinking about certain subjects while I’m painting, they’re inevitably going to appear in some way in what I do, because it’s impossible to separate one thing from the other. Especially because a large part of my practice is automatic and has a lot to do with who I am. Although I never start out wanting to specifically talk about gender.
I think the ambiguity you describe defines my practice and the way I am in general: being somewhere in between, caught between two worlds. It’s a bit like that with everything for me. I’ve never felt that I fully belonged to one particular thing. I feel part of many things, but never completely part of just one.
The mix of illustration and colour that sometimes appears in your paintings is also cool.
It’s something I’m still working on. I don’t want the paintings to be entirely figurative, but I don’t want to abandon drawing either, because it’s a very important part of what I do. In fact, many of my paintings start out as drawings.
In my sketchbooks, that combination comes more naturally: I can move from something completely abstract to a specific figure because every page is different. With a painting, I’m still trying to figure out how to make those two things coexist. I think colour can help me take a figure somewhere more abstract.
Although I don’t want to pigeonhole myself too much either. Sometimes it seems like, in order to have an artistic career, you have to develop a very specific and recognizable voice or visual language. I think that’s cool, but it’s not something I’m particularly interested in for myself. It feels a bit capitalist to me, like turning yourself into a brand and eventually becoming some kind of art company.
Although, obviously, it’s impossible to completely escape that in the world we live in. But I try not to make it so obvious. I’m interested in working with variations, different languages and aesthetics. My idea is to mix everything together: more abstract, landscape-based, or strange things with others that are more restrained or figurative. Not to leave anything too clear or fixed. I suppose it goes back to that idea of being somewhat in limbo, somewhere in between.
What is your process like?
It’s a process that I’ve gradually added layers to over time. I usually start by working with spray paint, and at that point I completely let myself go: lines, gestures, whatever comes out. Then I stretch the canvas and add diluted paint, in the line of Willem de Kooning or Helen Frankenthaler. I’m interested in understanding those processes and thinking that, if they reached a certain point, maybe I can take it a little further.
Once I start, I usually don’t stop. If something goes wrong, so be it. The great thing about painting is that you can always paint over it. The layers are actually part of my process: I build on a base, creating more depth and more levels of perception. The more layers there are, the richer it becomes.
Lately, I’ve been thinking that your relationship with a painting is quite similar to your relationship with a person. You have to understand what it wants, what you want, what you can give it, and what it can give you in return. If you’ve built a good relationship, even if you mess things up, you can usually work it out. It forgives you. [Laughs]
Although I think I learned that from life and then applied it to painting, rather than the other way around. Painting is a bit like having a conversation: you say one thing, then another, and little by little you decide what to keep, what to remove, and what works.
The canvases you use are quite varied.
Yes, I usually work with whatever I find on the street. I’ll come across the typical painting of a landscape or a hunting scene with a gilded Rococo frame, take the canvas off, and reuse the stretcher.
That’s why the sizes are often simply whatever happens to be available. I also make my own stretchers, but lately I’ve been trying not to buy as much wood because I find so many of them lying around.
Some of the paintings are almost three-dimensional, painted on both sides. Do you approach them as a sculptor?
Rather than thinking of the painting as a sculpture, I’m more interested in the idea of painting without painting: making works that are, in some way, something else. Even if I then cover them completely in acrylic.
I think that’s partly because I’m not a formally trained artist. I was never taught an “official” way of doing things, so from the beginning I’ve felt that anything that emerged was valid. That also gives me the freedom to experiment and simply have fun. At first I made things that were closer to collage, with lots of texture and drawing, and then I gradually started painting more in the traditional sense.
It also has to do with the idea of synaesthesia or cross-platform practices. What I was saying before: making a pisto manchego can be like painting. If I’m chopping, stir-frying, and concentrating on what I’m doing, the mental and even physical sensation can be the same as what I feel when I’m making art. Well, actually, pisto manchego is better because you can eat it. You can’t eat a painting. Unless you sell it and turn it into a pisto manchego, or trade it directly for one. [Laughs]
What’s the hardest part of painting?Stopping.
It’s pretty addictive, you know? You start and you want to get somewhere else, try things out, improve. It can be quite obsessive, although I think a little bit of obsession is a good thing.
But actually, the hardest part is getting the painting to say something. And I don’t mean on a theoretical or conceptual level, but emotionally. For it not to be the kind of decorative painting you’d find in a hotel, but something that makes you feel something. For better or worse.
I don’t know. Achieving that is something strange, almost esoteric. It probably has a lot to do with composition and structure: four things that, when they work together, create a kind of harmony. I don’t know whether it’s good or bad, but something that makes you want to enter the image.
And what do you enjoy most?
Exploring. The adventure.
And painting itself. I really enjoy looking at paintings, whoever the artist may be. Even if they’re mine. [Laughs]
Your stories also feature paintings by Hilma af Klint. She understood painting as a way of revealing hidden dimensions of existence, from a deeply spiritual perspective. Do you also see art as a way of revealing the invisible side of things?Yes, absolutely. I don’t know if I’m going to answer that exact question, but for me, the main value of art is that it can be a tool for anyone to live their life in a certain way.
I paint, and now I also sell paintings, but one of the things I’d be most interested in is for someone who doesn’t paint to see my work and think, “That’s so cool, I want to paint.” I think it’s through your own practice, through your own hands and mind, that you can reach more spiritual dimensions or realities that aren’t so visible.
I’m interested in art not simply being a consumer good, but a tool for personal emancipation. If you can make a living from making paintings, scores, or ceramics, then amazing; congratulations, because it’s difficult. But for me, what really matters is the practice itself.
I often compare it to sport: it helps you connect with yourself, with other people, and with the world. My utopia would be for someone to see a Hilma painting, feel something from it, and then go home and paint. For that moment of clarity they experienced in front of the painting to become something more significant within their spirit.
Would you like art to be something that helps people connect more with themselves?
Yes, and also with the universe and with what surrounds us.
Does art help you connect more with the universe?
I think so. Although I don’t know whether I was already connected to it before. Maybe art simply allowed me not to disconnect. Perhaps continuing to paint and draw from a young age kept me in tune with it.
Obviously, there have been times when I’ve become more disconnected, or when I’ve been caught up in some kind of destructive, egocentric, or strange bubble. But painting keeps me awake and attentive to what’s around me: how things move, how they work…
What have you discovered about how “things work”?
Wow, that’s difficult, because I don’t think I’ve ever put it into words or thought about it that way. They’re things I simply feel or perceive as I go along. But I’ll try to explain.
To begin with, that everything is connected, including art. No matter how specific or strange what you’re doing may be, it always comes from somewhere: from what you’ve seen, what you’ve experienced, and from the images that existed before you. That’s why I don’t think of the artist as an isolated individual with a completely unique voice, but as part of something broader. When I create, I’m continuing or transforming things that were already there.
Painting also makes me very attentive to my surroundings: to how lines connect, or how two figures that seem independent can actually be part of the same landscape. Ultimately, it’s the same idea: things don’t exist in isolation, either in time or in space.
And I also think it’s beautiful to be able to create your own version of what you perceive. To be a kind of translator of the impulses around you and transform them into something else.
I’m also intrigued by your work as a tattoo artist. We’d never interviewed one before. How did you get into it? And, specifically, do you see skin as a canvas?I’ve always been into tattoos. I think it all started with a book my mother had about tattooed people. I saw it when I was about ten and was blown away. At the time, I knew nothing about the associations between tattoos and people on the margins of society, criminals, and so on. Then, when I was nineteen, I met some guys from London who had tattooed themselves, and I thought I had to give it a try. I started with a sewing needle and India ink, and I got hooked. Little by little, I learned more and got deeper into that world.
At first, I think I simply wanted tattoos and didn’t have any money, so I decided to do them myself. Then friends started asking me to tattoo them, a partner I had at the time, my mother… Eventually, I started tattooing strangers.
That was when I became more aware of what I was actually doing. Sometimes I think about it and it’s pretty intense: I’m putting one of my drawings on someone who’s going to carry it with them for the rest of their life. I wouldn’t say I see skin as a canvas. To me, skin is attached to a human being, and that changes everything.
Over time, I’ve come to understand that tattooing is also a form of communication. You have to have a dialogue with the person you’re going to tattoo and make sure they know what they’re going to receive, because in a way, their story and mine are going to be connected forever. That drawing is going to age with that person, other people will see it, and it can even serve as a way of connecting strangers. Tattoos work a bit like astrology: they’re a way of breaking the ice. In fact, there are people who have met because they’re both wearing tattoos I made.
I think that’s one of the coolest things about tattooing: the drawing stops being just yours and starts becoming part of someone else’s life. In a way, it gives your work a life of its own. I find that pretty powerful.
Earlier you said that you’re becoming increasingly interested in music over some of your other practices. Why?
I’d always wanted to give it a try, but I’d never dared, and that’s what makes it exciting. I haven’t experienced that frustration yet of trying something and it not working out. I like learning on my own, mostly by ear, figuring out what sounds good and what doesn’t. It’s like exploring new territory.
I’m also interested in the materiality - or “non-materiality” - of music. I find vibration incredible. About seven years ago, I got my hands on an acoustic guitar and would play every now and then, but I’ve been completely hooked for about three months now. I play every day; I even have calluses. Something as simple as feeling the vibration of the guitar’s body against my stomach and chest makes me feel really good.
You’ve mentioned that what you read affects you quite a lot. Which books have had the biggest impact on you?
I read quite a varied range of things. There was a time when I mostly read theory; now I still read some essays, but mostly novels. When I was younger, around thirteen, I read Naked by David Sedaris, and I think it had a big influence on me. Or rather than influencing me, I really connected with the book and with the author. I strongly identified with the tone of the novel, the humour, the way it portrays a life full of contradictions… And that feeling of not quite fitting in anywhere and laughing about it; ultimately, laughing at yourself.
Another book that had a huge impact on me was Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys. I read it about three years ago, and it was one of those books that completely floods you with sensations. It tells the story of a girl’s childhood memories in the Caribbean and blends her family history with colonialism, racial segregation, and that whole context. The way it’s written is incredible: it makes you feel as though you’re actually there, surrounded by mosquitoes, with the blazing heat and intense light… It’s very psychedelic.
Another one I loved is Kingdom Cons by Yuri Herrera, a Mexican author who lives in the United States. I practically read the book in one sitting. I think it’s incredible on a lyrical level. I’ve been really into regional Mexican music for a while now, and while I was reading it, I almost felt like I could hear the rhythm of the sounds he was describing. It made me wonder, “Am I a mariachi? Am I some kind of Mexican corrido singer?” There’s something very musical about his prose. It’s narrative, but it feels like poetry.
An important question: your name, Nada Bien. Where does it come from?
I’ll give you my version. A few years ago, I was very obsessed with nothingness. I still am; I find it really interesting. It has to do with what we were talking about with dualities: for there to be an “everything,” there has to be a “nothing.” It’s pretty basic, but I find it beautiful.
Above all, I’m interested in it in relation to the ego and how we conceive of ourselves. Not thinking of yourself as an individual, concrete thing, but as part of a whole. Because at the same time, if you’re part of that whole, you’re also a little bit of nothing. You’re not something concrete or specific.
At the time, I was reading The Fruit of Nothingness by Meister Eckhart, a German mystic. It’s an incredible book that talks about Christian theology from a perspective that feels almost Taoist to me. It presents nothingness as a kind of root from which everything emerges.
I was also listening to “Swim Good” by Frank Ocean a lot with my partner at the time. One day they told me they were thinking about getting “nada bien” tattooed, which would be the Spanish translation of “swim good,” and I thought, “Wow, that’s so good.” I loved the double meaning. On the one hand, there was nothingness and, on the other, swimming. I also really like water, the sea, surfing… And it carries this implicit idea of not sinking, of staying afloat, alive, in the thick of things. I suppose I was a little depressed at the time too, so it was a mixture of everything.
I decided to use it as my Instagram name. And that was it.
I love it because I had interpreted “Nada Bien” differently, like “nothing is going well,” but from an ironic perspective; as if, despite everything, here we somehow still are. I feel like that kind of humour is quite present in your work.
Yes, absolutely. I’m very interested in that middle ground, where the extremes meet and where, ultimately, reality lies. It’s not entirely one thing or the other.
When all is said and done, what interests me is reality. I don’t know if I understand it, but I do know that I like to play with it: to reconstruct it, deconstruct it, or simply copy it. And humour is important there. Especially absurd, slightly surreal humour. That’s the kind I like most and the kind that comes most naturally to me.
In the end, it comes back to the same thing: letting yourself go.
How do you see the art scene in Madrid these days?
I think it’s pretty good. I’m not very involved in it, but I’m not completely outside of it either. I have friends with emerging galleries, artist friends, and it seems to me that interesting things are happening. The voices and subjects that are appearing tend to interest me and make me feel things.
It’s a shame there isn’t much money and that it’s still a pretty precarious sector. There isn’t much independence either, although I don’t think there ever has been. I suppose it’s more or less as it’s always been, just with new people saying new things.
You’re working on a specific project at the moment, right?
That’s right. I have a group exhibition in the autumn where I’ll be showing two works. So right now I’m in full-on landscape mode, working mainly on perspective and composition.
I keep experimenting, but there’s something that happens to me: when something works, I can’t bring myself to repeat it. In theory, I should just keep going with it, but I can’t. I get to a certain point and then I need to throw something strange into the mix. Maybe it’s a kind of self-sabotage. Not wanting things to simply work and leave it at that.
Earlier you said you like music precisely because it’s something new. Maybe it’s important to you that what you’re doing surprises you.
Yes, absolutely. There have to be surprises. Otherwise I feel a bit like an automaton, like I’m alienated. I like having fun and, if I’m not enjoying myself, I don’t do it. Otherwise I might as well be working in KPMG’s communications department, at Torre Picasso, or something.
Come on, don’t go that far.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was just being a bit dramatic. [Laughs]
Maybe you could be a baker or something.
Oh, yeah. You have to get up really early, but that would be cool. There are millions of professions I’d love. They just never happened, and now I’ve ended up with painting [more laughter].
So, while I’m at it, I want to have fun.
And finally, to wrap things up, what other dreams do you have? What things would you like to do?
I never think much about the future, but I’d like to improve my carpentry skills. I’m self-taught in that too and, obviously, with painting you can more or less get by, but with carpentry it’s more noticeable: things break, fall down, and come apart.
But I’d love to have a DIY workshop. That really would be a dream. Or a tool belt. And a cowboy hat.
[Ramón pauses, and, his eyes lighting up, starts speaking faster than before, as if someone had wound him up.]
When I was in sixth form, I spent a year in Wyoming, one of the cowboy states in the United States. It’s a very rural place, with practically no cities, a strong rodeo culture, and horses everywhere.
On my father’s side, I’ve also been quite connected to that world. He used to do Acoso y Derribo, a Spanish equestrian sport, sort of like our own version of rodeo. It’s a very niche thing: ranchers and nerds of traditional Spanish horsemanship, like my father. They don’t dress like American cowboys, obviously, but like the classic Iberian cowboy: a short riding jacket, flat-brimmed hat, leather riding chaps, boots…
I don’t know why I’m talking about this so much. I guess my dream after all is to become a cowboy.
Artwork images courtesy of the artist: photographs 6, 11, 14, 15, 21, 23, 25, 26, 27.
Interview by Victoria Álvarez Conde. 13.10.26
