PABLO MAESO (Barcelona, 1964). "Untitled". Acrylic on wood. Signed in the lower right corner. Measurements: 110 x 110 cm. Pablo Maeso, with his characteristic realistic technique, reproduces here an enclave that has been popularised by the social networks, becoming a pop icon of the instagram era. The artist echoes the numerous visits the place has received. It is the deceptive image of a "Prada shop" in the middle of the desert that is actually a sculpture made by the artists Elmgreen and Dragset as a critique of the luxury industry and exacerbated consumption. A graduate in Fine Arts from the University of Sant Jordi in Barcelona, he began as an abstract painter at the end of the 1980s in galleries in the Born district such as Alla Prima and Gloria de Prada. From 1999, as a realist painter, he exhibited individually in the Barcelona galleries Llucía Homs and Barnadas and in 1999 he took part in the exhibition "Realism in Catalonia". He also works with the galleries El Quatre in Granollers, Estela Docal in Santander and Juan Amiano in Pamplona, where he exhibits "Historias Verdaderas" (True Stories). In his works he aspires to achieve an effect "of moving with the everyday", in the artist's words: "I like to represent my characters when they are absorbed, pensive, stunned. The setting is invented most of the time, but using real buildings or landscapes. The starting point is generated by an idea, a phrase or the painting itself. A series with a similar colour or tone, certain frames, diagonal or central compositions... I use a computer a lot. From a concept and some photographs I compose a fixed plane, as if it were a frame; an exact drawing...and then I paint, with acrylic, which makes it easier for me to work on flat areas".