The gallery BAT Alberto Cornejo, has been associated to Art Madrid since its beginnings. Therefore, for this fifteenth anniversary, the gallery from Madrid is paying homage to the Fair with a selection of artists who have been key in its trajectory. Some of them have been present in Art Madrid during the fifteen editions.

BAT Alberto Cornejo was one of the 18 galleries that founded Art Madrid in 2005, as a response to the evident need to make visible the work of the galleries in Spain. Since then, its directors and team have been supporting the project, presenting artistic proposals that combine the work of young artists who follow a very contemporary expressive line and pieces by artists with more consolidated careers.

Pepe Puntas

La enredadera, 2019

Mixta sobre tabla

200 x 204cm

David Lechuga

Bañista, 2004

Bronze

44 x 20cm

The artworks of David Lechuga, Diego Canogar and Pepe Puntas, artists with whom BAT Alberto Cornejo has been working for years, are characterized by keeping a timeless aesthetic that still remains in the spotlight of contemporary art. The three artists, nationally recognized and having received countless awards, have works in some important national and international art collections.

Gustavo Díaz Sosa

Caminos divergentes I, 2019

Mixta sobre lino

150 x 150cm

Diego Canogar

Tetramorfo extendido 101 N, 2014

Hierro patinado

145 x 90cm

On the other hand, the exhibition proposal of BAT Alberto Cornejo is completed by three unconditional emerging artists of the gallery: José Ramón Lozano, who returns to his beginnings with his portraits of direct faces and dark backgrounds, Gustavo Díaz Sosa with its colored architectural spaces and Cuban artist Roldán Lauzán, previously featured by the gallery Collage Habana, will make his debut with BAT Alberto Cornejo at the Fair, and whose artworks will make us reflect on the duality of being.

“We have rarely seen such strength in holding the brush as we see in the works of these three artists. With a totally visceral impulse, their paintings are framed within those images that chase you until you find yourself in front of them and fall down", the gallery owners point out.”, comment the gallerists.

José Ramón Lozano

Sin Título (II), 2018

Acrílico sobre tela

120 x 120cm

Roldán Lauzán Eiras

Season III, 2019

Óleo sobre tela

140 x 140cm

These six developed and emerging artists are joined by the German photographer Jorg Karg, who is participating for the first time in the fair with BAT Alberto Cornejo, and the Slovak photographer Mária Švarbová, who will present a very special work, "Absolute Pink Bar ". This piece, with a format of 110 x 100 cm, is the result of an advertising collaboration, and there are only 10 copies in the world. BAT Alberto Cornejo will have one of these pieces in Art Madrid. In this edition, the gallery commits to photography supported by the international projection of these two artists, as they are present in galleries all over the world and with amazing careers despite their youth.

Jorg Karg

One mile light, 2019

Printing by pigment under acrylic glass on aluminum dibond

80 x 76cm

Mária Švarbová

Snow pool, Garden, 2017

Photography

90 x 90cm

At the booth of BAT Alberto Cornejo, the figurative art staged in paintings, sculptures, drawings and photographs, will have a greater presence than abstract art (with Puntas and Canogar as acting agents), and bright colors and the female figure (either in faces or bodies) will predominate. Gustavo Díaz Sosa, Diego Canogar and Pepe Puntas present works of their artistic life project, with their particular commitment to each piece.

It is worth noting that we can highlight the co-publication of the graphic work "Pont Neuf " by the artist Jorg Karg (image of the official poster of the Fair). The work will be available exclusively at Art Madrid. On the other hand, Roldán Lauzán has made a series of unpublished pieces for Art Madrid, from the series "Hierofante" and "Anatta Vadi ". We can also find in this edition, the catalogues "Futuro Retro " by Švarbová, of very exclusive sale in Spain.

The practice of the collective DIMASLA (Diana + Álvaro) is situated at a fertile intersection between contemporary art, ecological thinking, and a philosophy of experience that shifts the emphasis from production to attention. Faced with the visual and material acceleration of the present, their work does not propose a head-on opposition, but rather a sensitive reconciliation with time, understood as lived duration rather than as a measure. The work thus emerges as an exercise in slowing down, a pedagogy of perception where contemplating and listening become modes of knowledge.

In the work of DIMASLA (Diana + Álvaro), the territory does not function as a framework but rather as an agent. The landscape actively participates in the process, establishing a dialogical relationship reminiscent of certain eco-critical currents, in which subjectivity is decentralized and recognized as part of a broader framework. This openness implies an ethic of exposure, which is defined as the act of exposing oneself to the climate, the elements, and the unpredictable, and this means accepting vulnerability as an epistemological condition.

The materials—fabrics, pigments, and footprints—serve as surfaces for temporary inscriptions and memories, bearing the marks of time. The initial planning is conceived as an open hypothesis, allowing chance and error to act as productive forces. In this way, the artistic practice of DIMASLA (Diana + Álvaro) articulates a poetics of care and being-with, where creating is, above all, a profound way of feeling and understanding nature.

In a historical moment marked by speed and the overproduction of images, your work seems to champion slowness and listening as forms of resistance. Could it be said that your practice proposes a way of relearning time through aesthetic experience?

Diana: Yes, but more than resistance or vindication, I would speak of reconciliation—of love. It may appear slow, but it is deliberation; it is reflection. Filling time with contemplation or listening is a way of feeling. Aesthetic experience leads us along a path of reflection on what lies outside us and what lies within.

The territory does not appear in your work as a backdrop or a setting, but as an interlocutor. How do you negotiate that conversation between the artist’s will and the voice of the place, when the landscape itself participates in the creative process?

Álvaro: For us, the landscape is like a life partner or a close friend, and naturally this intimate relationship extends into our practice. We go to visit it, to be with it, to co-create together. We engage in a dialogue that goes beyond aesthetics—conversations filled with action, contemplation, understanding, and respect.

Ultimately, in a way, the landscape expresses itself through the material. We respect all the questions it poses, while at the same time valuing what unsettles us, what shapes us, and what stimulates us within this relationship.

The Conquest of the Rabbits I & II. 2021. Process.

In your approach, one senses an ethic of exposure: exposing oneself to the environment, to the weather, to others, to the unpredictable. To what extent is this vulnerability also a form of knowledge?

Diana: For us, this vulnerability teaches us a great deal—above all, humility. When we are out there and feel the cold, the rain, or the sun, we become aware of how small and insignificant we are in comparison to the grandeur and power of nature.

So yes, we understand vulnerability as a profound source of knowledge—one that helps us, among many other things, to let go of our ego and to understand that we are only a small part of a far more complex web.

Sometimes mountains cry too. 2021. Limestone rockfall, sun, rain, wind, pine resin on acrylic on natural cotton canvas, exposed on a blanket of esparto grass and limestone for two months.. 195 cm x 130 cm x 3 cm.

Your works often emerge from prolonged processes of exposure to the environment. Could it be said that the material—the fabrics, the pigments, the traces of the environment—acts as a memory that time writes on you as much as you write on it?

Álvaro: This is a topic for a long conversation, sitting on a rock—it would be very stimulating. But if experiences shape people’s inner lives and define who we are in the present moment, then I would say yes, especially in that sense.

Leaving our comfort zone has led us to learn from the perseverance of plants and the geological calm of mountains. Through this process, we have reconciled ourselves with time, with the environment, with nature, with ourselves, and even with our own practice. Just as fabrics hold the memory of a place, we have relearned how to pay attention and how to understand. Ultimately, it is a way of deepening our capacity to feel.

The fox and his tricks. 2022. Detail.

To what extent do you plan your work, and how much space do you leave for the unexpected—or even for mistakes?

Diana: Our planning is limited to an initial hypothesis. We choose the materials, colours, places, and sometimes even the specific location, but we leave as much room as possible for the unexpected to occur. In the end, that is what it is really about: allowing nature to speak and life to unfold. For us, both the unexpected and mistakes are part of the world’s complexity, and within that complexity we find a form of natural beauty.