Rafa Macarrón's Magical Universe

Odile Chen / Ravenel Quarterly No. 41 

(photo credit: Ting Ting Art Space)

Alongside Javier Calleja and Edgar Plans, Rafa Macarrón is another world-renowned rising artist from Spain. As a self-taught artist, Macarrón likes to express surrealistic and dreamscape images through uniquely abstract and comical figures characterized by big heads, slim limbs, and brightly painted fingernails. The visually impactful composition, mechanics, and spatial arrangement in Macarrón's works are vividly impressive while conveying a sadly romantic and retro scientific sentiment.

First Retrospective Art Exhibition at Age 40

Despite a lack of formal training, Macarrón grew up in a family of art connoisseurs that cultivated him with the legacy of Spanish art culture and European modernism. At age almost 30, Macarrón won the 2010 BMW Painting Award in Spain. At age 40, Macarrón held his first museum exhibition titled Quince at the Contemporary Art Center of Malga in March 2021. Having been in the art industry for most of his life, Macarrón has finally set off on a successful art career around age 40. In April 2021, he launched Afternoon Delight at the newly established CVG Foundation in Beijing, China. That was the first time Macarrón debuted his exhibition at an art institution in Asia.

In July 2021, Macarrón was invited to host a solo exhibition at the renowned art collector Lio Malca's Fundación La Nave Salinas in Ibiza, Spain. Founded in 2015, Fundación La Nave Salinas has not only hosted solo exhibitions for famous US street artists such as KAWS, Keith Haring, and Kenny Scharf, but it has also featured installations and performances for video artists Bill Viola and Marco Brambilla. Macarrón was the first Spanish artist to put on a solo exhibition at Fundación La Nave Salinas. Titled El Bañista , the exhibition showcased 15 paintings and sculptures about Ibiza's signature summer and ocean landscapes. Located in an old-fashioned building, the foundation displays a chapellike divinity that highlights the contrast between the simple space and Macarrón's colorful paintings in creating a festive atmosphere of splendor.

Fundación La Nave Salinas is a non-profit art space refurbished from an old salt warehouse by the sea. While the founder continues to expand the collection based on his intuitive aesthetics, he is also commended for generously sharing the art collection with the general public. Meanwhile, Fundación La Nave Salinas's exhibition planner Alberto Chehebar is also an outstanding contemporary art collector who has always wanted to find a Spanish artist for their foundation. Macarrón is undoubtedly their top pick for a passionate and talented artist.

Lio Malca, the founder of Fundación La Nave Salinas explained his views on Macarrón's works, "I was excited about Rafa's work from the beginning. His images seemed to me to be born from the universe of constellations of Joan Miró and the optimistic landscapes of Manuel H. Mompó. I knew that Rafa was heir to an important tradition of Spanish painting that I personally admire, and I have the firm intuition that he will do a lot of justice to his artistic relay. I imagined very quickly the work of Rafa among the pine trees and the Mediterranean Sea that surround La Nave Salinas, being an organic and integral part of the landscape of Ibiza, celebrating the paintings also with his presence, the sunrise, the life of its beaches and people and, the warm sunsets that we have in summer in the natural park that surrounds the space. I am convinced that Rafa and La Nave Salinas de Ibiza are going to get along really well."

Innate Talents from Generations of Art DNA

Rafa Macarrón was born with the birth name Rafael Macarrón Jaqueti. Born in Madrid in 1981, Macarrón comes from a family of many generations of artists. Both of his parents were architects and art collectors who have taught Macarrón to appreciate art and look at artworks with a critical eye. His great-uncle Ricardo Macarrón (1926-2004) was a court painter for the King, drawing portraits for European royalty. Dating back even further, Macarrón's great grandfather was an art gallery owner to a conservator and sculptor workshop. Macarrón demonstrated art talents at a young age when he visited museums and exhibitions with his parents. He recalls a family trip to Paris at age 4, where he became exposed to Pablo Picasso's works and has since embarked on a whole new journey.

The 4-year-old Macarrón visited the Picasso Museum in 1985, the year of its inauguration. The young Macarrón could sit or lay down in the exhibition room for the entire morning, connecting with the art master with sketchbooks and crayons in his hands. Since then, Macarrón has started sketching with a pencil on A4 or quarto size papers. The fascination by Picasso's art has planted a seed deep inside his heart. By age 7, Macarrón had drawn colorful sketches of animals or characters from imaginary worlds.

Before going to college, senior artist Juan Barjola (1919-2004) encouraged Macarrón not to apply for art school because his potential can be uncovered from within. Hence Macarrón went after other pursuits first but never did he give up on painting. Upon high school graduation, he became a professional cyclist who must be disciplined and enduring amid loneliness and the agony of physical consumption. Once he had cycled up the peak of Col du Tourmalet in the Pyrenees alone in challenging his physical limit. During this process, Macarrón found bike riding and painting to share a lot in common, as he worked non-stop for 8 to 10 hours in a highly focused state without feeling the lapse of time. Such disciplined training has enabled him to be fearless even in the face of 2-4 meter large canvases.

In 2006, the 25-year-old Macarrón decided to become a fulltime artist. Unlike painting as a hobby, there is no turning back on the path of a professional artist. By this time, Macarrón had gradually developed a more sophisticated art style. His diligence and painting speed enabled him to complete a single painting within one week despite using a complex mix of media. Creation is a voluntary process whereby discipline can be reflected in the artworks as it does in bike-riding. Macarrón used to ride 200km on a bike every day because physical exercise can help him think. He has applied this passion to painting and perfectly blended them together. Like a monk, he is disciplined to get up at 6am every morning and travel to his studio in Las Rozas, Madrid where he would do some reading before painting. He likes to paint under morning sunshine because he cannot wait until the afternoon. Every piece of work is created wholeheartedly, genuinely, and affectionately.

Macarrón's Universe—Munditos Characters

In terms of character expression, Macarrón has greatly benefited from his experience as a physiotherapist and knowledge about anatomy, human physiology and sports. His parents and siblings' profession as architects has led him to pay attention to image structure. He tests out characters through deformation, creating characters with different souls in an expressionist way. Looking magical and surreal in their own worlds, these lonely characters are exactly what make up Macarrón's Universe.

What are these characters? Macarrón extracts information from everyday life and puts them into his paintings. Under his willpower, the paintings are a compilation of his autobiography that captures all aspects of life–including self experiences, childhood memories, and daily observations. With unique character styles and an impressive atmosphere, Macarrón's contemporary group portraits are reminiscent of the works by classic art masters Jheronimus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel.

By integrating the historical traditions of European figurative art, Macarrón's paintings reflect a mix of influences such as Surrealism from Picasso, Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró and Matta, art brut from Dubuffet, as well as Spanish comics and art of the 50s and 60s.

In response to an interview question about his art inspirations, Macarrón answered, "I have had a very direct relationship with the Spanish painting, I have practically grown up in the Prado Museum, the best art gallery in the world. I am very proud to be part of Spanish painting tradition. Goya's black paintings have always moved me. Goya is the best painter in the world; and of course 'Las Meninas' by Velázquez, which I consider the best work. But it all started with Picasso. I fell in love with his work in Paris, in his museum. I was four years old and, from that precise moment, I haven't stopped drawing."

Born after the 1980s, Macarrón has not been directly influenced by comics and pop art like other members of Generation Y. Instead, he indulges in the historical traditions of Western art as well as surrealistic imaginations and straightforward expression styles. According to Macarrón, "My characters don't go towards the caricature. I flee away from all kinds of cartoonish ornamentation. They are born from a fantastic, surreal, and expressionist figuration. I consider them hybrid characters that are closely related to my admiration for Dubuffet, Bonifacio, and Alfonso Fraile. My characters live in a transcended daily life, clean days, sunsets, and fresh air."

Ingenuine Transitions between 2D and 3D Spaces

The artist created a variety of characters that constantly evolved over the years, finally reaching their unique styles today. Their regeneration demonstrates the hope for new life through elongated or enlarged heads and slim limbs. In particular, Macarrón's characters wear brightly colored nail polish regardless of their genders. The strange postures are truly fascinating. The artist recalls being inspired by a French woman he saw in Montparnasse Paris when he was five years old. The vivid impression has led him to paint all characters with vibrantly colored nail polish. Nail polish has been around in human history for thousands of years. It symbolized the upper class in ancient Egypt; it is known that Babylonian warriors wore black nail polish while some Chinese royalties also painted their nails. Today, it is a symbol for the universal value for men and women to look pretty and charismatic in their own personal ways.

The depiction of hands is undoubtedly the most eye-catching element in Macarrón's paintings. The artist believes that humans express emotions through their eyes and hands. Hence the hands can be expressively drawn to attract viewers' attention. There is a saying in the art community that hands and dogs are the most difficult to draw because their spirits cannot be easily captured. Previously an athlete, Macarrón likes to challenge himself. Not only does he like to focus on characters' hands and postures, but he also enjoys working on animal themes and making dog sculptures. Some examples of dog sculptures include the bronze sculpture outside Fundación La Nave Salinas and the 2022 limited 30-piece edition copper carvings of Fabiola and Indi in collaboration with the Dutch platform Avant Arte. More recently, Macarrón has debuted his horse -shaped copper carving at the Nino Mier gallery in Brussels.

Macarrón constructs 3D spaces or even dreamscapes in 2D paintings. He likes to experiment with image structures due to long years of influences from his parents and siblings in the architect profession. The 2D and 3D spaces construct a tension in the paintings that accentuates the slim characters from the images. This draws viewers closer to the magical spaces in the paintings.

Looking at Macarrón's 2019 large oil painting Diferente Mundo as an example, the artist used paper collage, acrylic paint, and other materials to create a square-shaped green space. The richly layered background colors and lightly coated paints symbolized an ethereal atmosphere that combined with well-textured group portraits to form a profoundly magical universe. The artist playfully experimented with the spatial structure and illusion. Some of the artist's multidimensional spaces resembled fictional rooms, while others look like swimming pools, beaches, unknown mountains, and planets with fantastical elements such as clouds, rainwater, towers, long stairs, and aircrafts. The interactions and gestures between unique characters and animals, and their puzzling eyes expressing tenderness, naivety, and desires are examples of Macarrón's depiction of smooth, magical, yet in-depth paintings from his personal experiences. As opposed to the barren pessimism of existentialism, these thought-provoking and self-reflective contemporary fable paintings are truly precious in our era.

Recognition by Art Organizations and International Markets

From sketching at age 4 to becoming a professional artist and holding the first solo exhibition at age 25, for over a decade Macarrón has applied the same amount of discipline to art as he did to professional cycling. He has continued attending art competitions and exhibitions in Spain and all over the world because he believes competitions can create momentum and bring useful advice from professional artists and art critics in the industry. Success is not a random process because it can only be achieved by being visible to other people. Unlike other Generation Y artists, Macarrón does does not strive for social media attention. He keeps a relatively low profile on social media, hoping to make gradual progress through the traditional and practical approach of attracting curators, critics, and galleries' attention for potential exhibition opportunities.

Macarrón has won many awards including the First Place Award at the 2009 Certamen Internacional de Pintura Royal Premier Hoteles. His 2010 artwork Busca Silencioy You Will Find received the First Place Award at the 15th Certamen de Pintura Jóvenes pintutores Fundación Gaceta, and Los tres Mosquiteros outcompeted 700 contestants at the 25th BMW Painting Award in 2010. The jury gave the painting First Place for combining Formalism with lyricism and satire. Macarrón was also named as ARCO's Best Artist in 2013.

All of Macarrón's dedication and efforts have finally paid off. Now he is collaborating with galleries across Europe, Americas, and Asia— including ARCO in Madrid Spain, Zona Maco Contemporary Art Fair in Mexico, ArtBo in Bogota, Colombia, Context Art Miami and Art Miami in the US, Art Moscow, Art Taipei, Art Shenzhen, and West Bund Art in Shanghai. As a result, his artworks have been collected all over the world.

Currently, Macarrón's works are in the public collection of Spain's Fundación María Cristina Masaveu Peterson (FMCMP), Fundación BMW, Fundación Vivanco, LA Rioja, Caja Campo, Valladolid, Virgen de las Viñas Cooperative, Tomelloso, Colección Pilar Citoler, Colección Mercadona, and Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, Peekskill. Many of these collections are owned by famous Spanish private museums, enterprises, and wineries.

In collaboration with art galleries or organizations in Spain, US, Belgium, Taiwan, and China, Macarrón's have also briefly appeared in the second-hand market. In October 2017, a small size 10 oil painting was up for auction at Christie's Madrid and sold for only over two-thousand Euros. In the 2020 spring auction, a white oil painting slightly larger than size 120 was sold for NTD $1.56 million (USD $52,774), more than twice over the lower estimate. The rise of contemporary Spanish artists at that time had stimulated general buying. In October 2021, the diptych titled Rutina Fluor was sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong for HKD $4.284 million (USD $550,352), bringing Macarrón's personal record to a whole new level. This painting currently sets the highest auction record for the artist. Other than Rutina Fluor, the other 19 paintings in the artist's top 20 auction records in the appendix of this article were all sold in 2022.

Now a father of four, Macarrón will continue to challenge himself. He perceives crisis as an essential part of art evolution because every artist needs to keep on reflecting and updating themselves. The confrontation against external cultures and social environments such as wars often lead great artists to create extraordinary works. Under current global issues and the art revolution in Spain, artists must keep going fearlessly. We look forward to seeing more colorful and fantastical artworks from Macarrón's universe as the talented and disciplined artist continues to work tirelessly on his journey of creation.