Born in Madrid in 1981, Rafa Macarrón is a self-taught artist and ex-cyclist who won the 2010 BMW Painting Awards. Rafa Macarrón’s first solo exhibition in Asia — “Afternoon Delight” is taking place now at the newly established CVG Foundation in Beijing, China.
On the occasion of this solo show (till 19 May 2022), LARRY’S LIST examines Rafa Macarrón’s art practice and his current market popularity.
1. Being a self-taught artist
The advantage of being a self-taught artist is not being limited by the dogma in traditional art education and being free to explore one’s instinctual creativity. Rafa Macarrón is one example of the talented, self-taught artists who are able to harness this advantage to the maximum. Working in bursts of spontaneity, he dispenses with preparatory sketches as he paints directly onto a wide variety of surfaces and materials, including iron, aluminium, and PVC. The resulting art is with strong and unique personal style that stems directly from the artist’s soul.
2. Familiar subject matter from everyday life
An observer of his surroundings, Rafa Macarrón then takes the characters or imageries coming internally from his mind and turns them into paintings in his own visual languages. His art is some sort of a recollection of his experiences, influenced by dreams and childhood reminiscences; one can see aspects of the artist’s personal daily life. Yet, they are depicted in surrealist colors and forms. Therefore, his art gives a sense of familiarity while inspiring imagination in the meantime.
3. Playing between two and three-dimensional spaces
Rafa Macarrón’s paintings are a testament to his interest and strength in world-building. The composition in his paintings often playfully acknowledges a tension between two and three-dimensional space. The characters in his paintings, often with elongated arms and legs, seem to be protruding out of the painting surface, reducing the distance between the viewer and the dream-like space illustrated in the painting.
4. Rooted in deep tradition of European figurative painting
Rafa Macarrón’s art is influenced by comics and Spanish painting of the 50s and 60s by artists including those of the El Paso group, as well as Dubuffet, Fraile, Matta or Quirós — deeply rooted in the tradition of European figurative painting. Nowadays the artist still recalls a formative visit to the Musée Picasso in Paris when he was a child while we can recognize the exaggerated facial features or hands in his neo-cubist abstraction. Heavily influenced by Keith Haring, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, and Hieronymous Bosch, Rafa Macarrón’s paintings are regarded as a reference of contemporary painting.
5. An international and institutional collector base
Widely collected by various renowned art collectors including Lio Malca, Rafa Macarrón’s work is collected by institutions worldwide, including the Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, New York; Fundación BMW, Spain; Caja Campo, Valladolid, Spain; and Colección Mercadona, Spain; among others.
6. Institutional recognition
A decade after having won the 2010 BMW Painting Awards, Rafa Macarrón has also gained some institutional recognition. After having his first institutional show in March 2021 at the Contemporary Art Centre of Malaga, Macarrón also presented a solo exhibition at La Nave Salinas Foundation in Ibiza, founded by art collector Lio Malca. Macarrón is the first Spanish artist to be the focus of a solo show at the foundation after exhibitions of KAWS, Keith Haring, and Kenny Scharf.
Related: CVG Foundation
