118 - PEDRO CAMPOS (Madrid, 1966)

PEDRO CAMPOS (Madrid, 1966) Untitled, 2005. Oil on canvas. Signed and dated in the lower right corner. Measurements: 73 x 100 cm; 76 x 104 cm (frame). Pedro Campos trained at the Official School of Conservation and Restoration of Works of Art in Madrid, an experience that would prove fundamental to the development of his later pictorial language. His work as a restorer, carried out over the years in various parts of Spain, gave him a deep understanding of traditional painting techniques and, in particular, an extraordinary attention to detail, material, and surface. At the same time, he worked as an illustrator until, beginning in 1998, he devoted himself almost exclusively to painting, developing a style closely linked to hyperrealism. His work typically draws on photographic references but transcends mere reproduction through a meticulous process of selection, composition, and painterly execution.His work also maintains a close dialogue with the visual culture of Pop Art, both through his choice of specific motifs and his interest in transforming everyday objects and images into the focal points of his paintings. Through a rigorous technique, Campos thus challenges the traditional opposition between photography and painting, using the former as a starting point to demonstrate the expressive possibilities of the latter. Since the late 1990s, his work has gained increasing international recognition, with exhibitions and a presence in collections both within and outside Spain. His career places him among the most recognizable Spanish representatives of contemporary hyperrealism, where technical precision becomes not an end in itself, but rather a tool for endowing the pictorial image with presence and autonomy.