UnderWater 5078 at Birgitta Beach

Ruben Abstract
(Madrid, Spain 1975)

73 x 60 cm. (28,7 x 23,6 in.) Water-based paint on panel and epoxi resin. 2023

I started painting Swimmers to awake in you the willingness to fight restlessly and make your dream come true. Choose your attitude and your direction in life, and become that swimmer that goes against the grain, no matter what people expect from you, no matter what it takes.
Just trust in yourself as you have never done before and fight for your dream.
My name is Ruben and I am a 100% self-taught painter.
I started painting after deciding by seeing various artists on Instagram, that I wanted to retire as a painter. This happened one day in August 2017 while on vacation at the beach and shortly after finishing my first Ironman triathlon on the island of Lanzarote in the Canary Islands.
I like to think that what I paint is a metaphor for life: the sea water behaves like life, because with its currents it displaces us, sometimes helping us and often not, but we must not stop stroking strongly in the direction of what we are looking for.

I created the “swimmers colection” dure some years of challenging personal growgth, so I painted swimmer going against the grain.

“UnderWater” is a celebration:

because I am finally embracing the outcome of my dedication, represented by the vibrant power of colours and their unique blend of pigmented epoxi resin layers.

This gentle swimmer is present in each artwork as a “souvenir” of this journey.

Exhibitions

– Contempop Gallery, Affordable Art Fair, Hong Kong, China, 2023.
– Contempop Gallery Affordable Art Fair, New York, USA, 2023
– Forest Gallery, Affordable Art Fair, London, England, 2023.
– Soraya Cartategui Gallery, Contemporary ArtFair JustMad, Madrid, 2023
– Affordable Art Fair, Hamburg, Germany, 2022.
– Affordable Art Fair, Ámsterdam, Holand, 2022
– Forest Gallery, Affordable Art Fair, London, England, 2022.
– Soraya Cartategui Gallery, Feriarte, Madrid, 2022.
– Soraya Cartategui Gallery, Contemporary ArtFair Estampa, Madrid, 2022
– Soraya Cartategui Gallery, Contemporary ArtFair JustLx, Lisboa, Portugal, 2022
– Soraya Cartategui Gallery, Contemporary ArtFairo JustMad, Madrid, 2022
– Soraya Cartategui Gallery, Contemporary ArtFair Estampa Edición Especial, Madrid, 2021
– Individual Exhibition– Ayuntamiento de Tres Cantos, Madrid, 2021
– Soraya Cartategui Gallery, Contemporary ArtFair, ArtMadrid, 2021
– Soraya Cartategui Gallery, Contemporary ArtFairo Estampa, Madrid, 2021
– Soraya Cartategui Gallery, Feriarte, Madrid, 2021

    Contact with the gallery about this work