(Detail) Rafa Macarrón, Sin título, 2026. Oil on linen.
© Estudio Rafa Macarrón
Cayón is pleased to present, at its space at Blanca de Navarra 9, Madrid, Introspective, the first
exhibition of Rafa Macarrón (Madrid, 1981) in a Spanish gallery in eight years.
Exhibition view of Rafa Macarrón: Introspectiva, Cayón, Madrid, 2026. © Estudio Rafa Macarrón.
Rafa Macarrón, Sin título, 2026. Oil on linen. 226 x 366 cm.
© Estudio Rafa Macarrón
The exhibition marks Macarrón’s return to the national and international scene as one of the most significant figures of a new generation of contemporary artists and as one of the Spanish artists with the greatest international projection. After several years of intense activity outside Spain, the artist has devoted an extended period to studio practice and reflection, stepping away from the dynamics of the international art market.
Coinciding with ARCO Madrid, the exhibition presents Macarrón’s new pictorial series. His work is characterised by the creation of self-contained universes inhabited by figures with distorted features and expressive gestures, whose poetic presence invites reflection on the human condition. Through painting, sculpture and craft, he has developed an unmistakable visual language in which colour, texture and composition combine in a narrative that celebrates life in all its complexity.
Macarrón’s new body of work, more acerbic and incisive than in previous periods, is accompanied by a reappraisal of his painterly method. His painting has become denser and more meticulous, making full use of the qualities of oil. The canvases present his characteristic figures with a more corporeal presence and grant equal importance to the objects that dress and surround them, such as handbags, shoes or coats emblematic of contemporary luxury society. Significantly, none of them carries a mobile phone.
The protagonists, for whom scale, proportion and their relationship to space play a fundamental role, appear wary, introspective and absorbed in their longings, set against monochrome backgrounds that recall Velázquez’s Pablo de Valladolid.
Exhibition view of Rafa Macarrón: Introspectiva, Cayón, Madrid, 2026. © Estudio Rafa Macarrón.
In a letter to his friend, the painter Henri Fantin-Latour, Édouard Manet expressed his astonishment at this work by Velázquez, describing it as “perhaps the most astonishing piece of painting ever made… the background disappears; it is air that surrounds the man, dressed all in black and full of life”.
In Macarrón’s case, this absent Velázquezian background is transformed into an orange field, in a clear reference to the work of Francis Bacon.
Among Macarrón’s influences are post-war Spanish masters such as the El Paso group, as well as Jean Dubuffet and Pablo Picasso, from whom he inherits an interest in formal experimentation and the search for new modes of expression. In this series he also incorporates references to international artists such as Mark Rothko, Francis Bacon and Philip Guston, alongside elements of contemporary fashion, giving rise to a visual language of great emotional intensity. The arrangement of the figures and the perspective of the compositions also reveal the influence of Rogier van der Weyden, incorporating a spatial organisation that reinforces the narrative and the relationships between the figures, in which caricature clearly plays a fundamental role. It is worth recalling that Guillaume Apollinaire, at the beginning of the last century, emphasised the importance of the spirit of caricature as a defining characteristic of high quality modern painting (something already evident decades earlier in the pictorial and above all sculptural work of Daumier).
All these references converge in a vibrant painting that plays with density, charged with energy while maintaining a tender, introspective and profoundly human gaze.
Renowned for his ability to connect with the viewer through characters that inhabit a space between the everyday and the strange, Macarrón invites us to pause and look beyond appearances in order to explore the nuances of existence. Marked by technical skill and a deeply personal sensibility, his work has established itself as a significant presence within Spanish and international contemporary art.
The exhibition will be on view at Blanca de Navarra 9, Madrid, from 4 March 2026.
Rafa Macarrón, Sin título, 2026. Oil on linen. 226 x 366 cm.
© Estudio Rafa Macarrón
Exhibition view of Rafa Macarrón: Introspectiva, Cayón, Madrid, 2026. © Estudio Rafa Macarrón.
Sin título, 2026
Oil, watercolor and watercolor pencil on 100% cotton printmaking paper, 180 g, handmade.
Dimensions: 65.5 x 50.5 cm.
Framed dims.: 71.5 x 56.5 x 4 cm.
RN017
Sin título, 2026
Oil, watercolor and watercolor pencil on 100% cotton printmaking paper, 180 g, handmade.
Dimensions: 65.5 x 50.5 cm.
Framed dims.: 71.5 x 56.5 x 4 cm.
RN018
Sin título, 2026
Oil, watercolor and watercolor pencil on 100% cotton printmaking paper, 180 g, handmade.
Dimensions: 65.5 x 50.5 cm.
Framed dims.: 71.5 x 56.5 x 4 cm.
RN016
Portrait of Rafa Macarrón at the exhibition Rafa Macarrón: Introspectiva, Cayón, Madrid, 2026. © Estudio Rafa Macarrón.