Alberto Montes (Los Corrales, Seville, 1995), graduate in Fine Arts from the University of Seville and Master in Interdisciplinary Production from the University of Malaga, is a visual artist who has participated in projects such as the II Andalusian University Biennial of Contemporary Art (Seville, 2017), CREENÇA (Cal Rosal, 2018), Homeless (Miami, 2018), Void Projects Residency (New York, 2019), he has recently been awarded a grant by the Antonio Gala Foundation in its XX Promotion of Grants for Young Artists (Cordoba, 2021-22). He has received several awards, including the 1st Gold Medal of the El Paular Scholarship (Segovia, 2017), the 1st Crea Joven Award (Seville, 2018), the 1st Prize of the XXX Premios Madroño (Madrid, 2022), the 2nd Prize of the 50th International Landscape Painting Competition (Alcalá de Guadaira, 2023), the 3rd Prize of the XIV Certamen de Pintura Grúas Lozano (Seville, 2024), as well as several honourable mentions in different competitions.
He is the author of the mural Re-visión de un paisaje granaíno, curated by Rebobinart, for the student residence company Livensa Living.
Landscapes and nature form your identity as an artist. How do you incorporate these elements into your creative process and work?
I come from a village far from the city. This inevitably shapes my personality and my sensibility. I spent most of my childhood and adolescence in the bush, it is part of me and I think I know its forms well. I also find it a very interesting subject with many pictorial possibilities.
In your work there is a balance between art and nature, how do you manage this and what challenges do you face?
Art is a human invention and nature was here before us. I would say that the most complex thing is to combine the artificial and the natural in one work. Getting closer to this balance is one of my great obsessions.
You have participated in many international urban art festivals. How do these experiences, together with your training and the grants you have received, influence your development and artistic style?
What I value most about muralism and the residencies is the opportunity to travel around the world, meet many artists, become aware of different contexts and connect with everything that is happening around me at the time. I try to make contextual and meaningful work every time I leave the studio.
And how has your participation in residencies in cities like New York and Miami influenced you?
My travels to the US have been crucial to my artistic development, I’ve been lucky enough to meet great artists there. Everything is maximised in these cities, also in terms of thought, attitude and gaze.
You have worked on projects such as the II Andalusian University Biennial of Contemporary Art and the Wide Open Walls Urban Art Festival in Sacramento, California. What differences do you see between working on these events and your individual projects?
Both are very different in nature and happened at different times. Both were pivotal. BIUNIC was an incredible opportunity to show my first studio work in places like the Valentín de Madariaga Foundation and Caja Rural, which led to other opportunities and a lot of learning. Wide Open Walls, on the other hand, was the most powerful mural experience I’ve ever had; I was invited by Axel Void, together with Iván Floro (VanVuu) and Emilio Cerezo. It was a turning point in my perception of muralism and teamwork. It was super fun and intense, we had a great time and a lot of surreal anecdotes came out of it that I’ll tell you about one day (he laughs).
On the other hand, individual projects are fundamental to personal growth. The key, as with everything, is balance.
D’altra banda, els projectes individuals són fonamentals per al creixement personal. La clau està en l’equilibri, com en tot.
Decontextualisation and fragmentation are recurring themes in your work. What attracts you to these concepts and how do you apply them in your art?
I try to make my work stop you in your tracks, interest you, make you stop and look at it and analyse it. The aesthetic strategies I use are the ones you mentioned, I try to create a sense of alienation above all. In the murals I use fragmentation a lot because I think it works very well with the architectural environment (buildings, houses, doors, windows, shop signs, reflections, etc.). In a way, the mural participates in all the visual rhythm that surrounds it.
How do you see your work developing in the coming years, especially in terms of exploring the perception and language of contemporary painting?
I don’t worry too much about that, it will come naturally. It will largely depend on my future interests, what I see, read, hear and/or discover.
Landscape is a central theme in your work. How do you decide which aspects of the landscape to emphasise and how to represent them?
Within the landscape there are an infinite number of rhythms, shapes, colours, in short, possibilities. I try to choose those that best suit my way of painting to get the most out of my work, and I often let my intuition guide me.
How important is it for you to preserve the memory of the territory through your art, and how do you think your works contribute to this goal?
There is a concept that I like very much and sometimes I use it as a starting point: Genius Loci or spirit of the place. It refers to what inhabits and protects a place, what gives it identity and meaning. What lies behind the idiosyncrasies of each person. Working with this concept means establishing a deep and conscious connection with the place and/or territory, which generates a more meaningful and coherent artistic experience.
I try to make my work a kind of resistance to the separation from the natural or rural environment that is so fashionable in contemporary society.
What advice would you give to young artists who want to explore the relationship between nature and urban art in their work?
Everyone has their own motivations, there will be people who are not interested in landscape or urban art, or the opposite, as in my case. I don’t think I’m in a position to give advice to anyone. Personally, if anything has helped me, it has been asking myself a lot of questions about myself, analysing myself in some way. From that self-exploration come the clues that guide my work. Everyone should look for their own motivations and obsessions.
What future projects do you have in mind and what would you like to achieve with your artistic exploration in the long term?
At the moment I’m preparing some mural projects that I think will be important, both locally and internationally. I’m also very motivated to get into the studio and rethink my work with paintings, to look for new ways of telling and showing my work.
Sobre Re-visión de un paisaje granaíno
What inspired you to create this mural?
Mainly, when I design a mural, I try to take references from the environment that surrounds it. A kind of botanical research. With the material I find (I don’t always find everything) I incorporate the elements of the local landscape that best suit my pictorial style.
Is there a personal story or event that motivated you to choose this subject?
Yes, in all the work I do, both in public space and in my private studio work (which is shown in galleries), the theme that runs through it all is landscape. An almost biographical landscape. I come from a very small village in Seville, in the centre of Andalusia. My life is directly linked to the countryside and nature, and that is my identity. My work is based on this theme with a purely pictorial interest, channeling the questions and problems that occupy me most at any given moment. It seems to me to be a versatile subject, offering many possibilities that other genres such as portraiture, still life, etc. do not.
Can you describe your creative process for this mural?
First I get the mural and then I do some research on the internet, which I use to create my own image bank of the area. For this mural I actually have 46 images. Depending on the wall, I go back through the archives and see which elements suit it best, because I can’t change it (laughs). I also let myself be guided by the sensations generated by the visual research I do, because it creates an atmosphere of what I want to convey with the mural.
As for the colours, I made several suggestions. The first one had more whitish or pale colours, as a reference to the Sierra Nevada. The final palette has these brown, green and yellow elements and the garnet colour of the pomegranate. It is a mural that is part of a Mediterranean climate that is implicit in the chromatic palette. I wanted to make a mural that would take you to a certain place, not only because of the elements, but also because of the colours. This mural would not be understood in the same way in northern Europe, it is for a more southern climate.
Are there any artists or artistic movements that have influenced your style or approach in this mural?
In general, yes; in particular, not so much. I am influenced by many things, from painting, literature, cinema, gastronomy, companions, etc.
Is there a specific message or feeling you would like the public to take away from your work?
Let’s say to feel closer to the landscape, to nature. And to painting, of course. To arouse interest in both subjects. I think the concept of the Mediterranean is very interesting, and to approach it from the Andalusian-Granadian landscape was a motivation and a challenge. It is a subject that can generate a very strong sense of belonging.
