“It took me four years to paint like Raphael and a lifetime to paint like a child.”

A central concern in Alejandro Ospina’s practice is the use of traditional pictorial forms to represent new phenomena, particularly those arising from the transformation of image consumption in the digital age. The image, mostly photographic, remains relatively unchanged, but never before has society had access to such a vast amount of material, the speed at which it can be accessed, and the infinite possibility of pursuing one’s own interests. This creates a “white noise” of information; its volume is such that it blurs into abstractness. The process of interpretation, from the conscious to the subconscious, is amplified, causing many changes in the way we think and act, which particularly affects young people who have begun their lives in the midst of this context.

Based on Picasso’s observation regarding the difficulty of recapturing a childlike perspective in painting, this exhibition showcases an evolution in Ospina’s artistic exploration. In a world where information overload is reshaping the way we think, the artist seeks to return to the starting point of painting through the innocence of the primal stroke.

The project stems from the “deceleration” of time caused by the pandemic, a period during which the artist observed the creative development of his children, Arin (6 years old) and Unai (8 years old). By incorporating their drawings—direct and as yet uncontaminated by cultural or advertising influences—a playful juxtaposition emerges between the purity of childhood imagination and the infinite availability of cultural references and internet imagery.

The work explores the striking contrast between the two boys’ styles—one Dionysian and the other Apollonian—a difference that led him to experiment with layering in various ways: sometimes using a single set of images, other times creating a dialogue between the two styles within the same work, or juxtaposing one or both against a fragment of an emblematic figure from art history, pushing the images from the Internet into the background.

Throughout the development of this serie, a sense of urgency arose for Ospina, as the drawings exemplified the continuous flow in which we live: the inevitable change brought about by the passage of time. They reflect memory, which is always subject to change and is forgotten if not documented.

For this particular exhibition at La Cometa Madrid, a new piece—a cog—has been added: “Magical Thinking / Buenas Noches I.” It introduces another layer, a new level of image sedimentation generated by the inescapable flow of lived experience, which paves the way for the next series the artist will begin. That liminal moment has arrived—that uncertain yet natural and inevitable threshold between childhood and youth—and Arin and Unai no longer draw as they once did. For this reason, this work constitutes a formal and conceptual paradox, as images are added that simultaneously blur previous layers. The work of memory continues, but now the space is also filled with what is no longer there—an erasure of those creations that, with the passage of time, can no longer be appropriated with the same verisimilitude, or those products of childhood imagination that simply will no longer be.