JOSÉ MALDONADO (Madrid, 1962). Untitled. 1992. Acrylic paint, varnish and charcoal on canvas. Measurements: 90 x 90 cm. Self-taught, José Maldonado began his activity in 1982, collaborating as an illustrator and collaborating artist in publications of the time such as La Luna de Madrid, Madrid Me Mata, Madriz and others. The artistic project that the artist has been developing during the last 15 years is focused on the impossibility of constituting an image and representation of reality that is full and intimate and at the same time capable of establishing a deep communicative link. José Maldonado says: "My work is based on suspicion, and also on the conviction of an extreme difficulty of reading and incomprehension, also extreme... that the work and the work of the artist try to save through the assumption of a void or gap, a blank space, perhaps devoid of meaning, in which communication occurs in an unregulated way (implosive and explosive). The project is in essence an allegory of communication and the desire to interpret the world and give ourselves to it as if it were our neighbor... or ourselves". José Maldonado has shown his work in international galleries such as Juana Mordo, Toni Estrany, Froment & Putman, Denise Van de Velde or Helga de Alvear, and in exhibitions held, among others, at the Prospect in Frankfurt, the CAPC in Bordeaux or the Institute of Contemporary Art in Lyon, among others. His works are kept in museums such as the Museo Nacional de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, the Museo Patio Herreriano, the Ulster Museum in Belfast or the Marugame Hirai Museum in Tokyo.