Nevile.143: Explorar-se, temporary exhibition at BAS Museum

The works on show belong to a series titled “Explore Collection” (2025). The scenes convey suspended emotional moments rather than a direct narrative. As the title suggests, it is an introspective exploration by the artist of universal themes such as individual loneliness, nostalgia, personal rebuilding, hope and perseverance. The works stand alone or together, as they share the same atmosphere, from which personal experiences and memories emerge.

Formally, his work strikes a balance between structure and improvisation. His visual language is coherent and recognisable, with an identity of its own that sits between the urban and contemporary painting. He combines schematic figures, fragments of text, recurring symbols, patches of colour and graphic elements that recall both spontaneous drawing and gestural painting. His brushwork is free, direct and not overly measured, although some areas show technical control, in contrast with others that are more intuitive and gestural. The palette plays an expressive rather than descriptive role, creating emotional climates within the composition. The artist works mainly in oil, on both wood and canvas. His line is almost childlike or “anti-stylised”. With Explorar-se, the artist offers an intimate reflection on certain emotions and processes of personal transformation, through direct, intuitive and contemporary painting.

Text: Miriam Díaz

Ferran Castellnou (Nevile.143) was born in Colombia (Medellín) in 1992 and settled in Barcelona in 1996, where he still lives. From the age of sixteen he became interested in various artistic disciplines, such as graphic art, mural painting, graffiti, screen printing, tattooing and studio painting.

He himself divides his time as a graffiti writer and urban artist into two phases. He started at eighteen under the pseudonym “Organo”, using a drawing of a heart as his logo. He was drawn to the spontaneity of graffiti, enjoying the moment rather than feeding the ego. He soon realised that repeating the same element over and over gets an artist labelled and pigeonholed. At the same time, at twenty-five, he discovered his passion for screen printing and tattooing. In this phase he became interested in symbolism and colour, and explored the “ignorant” style and “anti style”, two of today’s most current urban trends.

More recently, during 2025, he has focused on studio painting, where he synthesises and applies everything he has learned in other media, surfaces and techniques. In traditional painting he finds a timeless way of expressing himself, outside the pace of social life and the mass production of images. For Ferran it is an intimate space that lets him share his experiences, values and ways of thinking, understanding and feeling. His style thus brings together several languages: the legacy of graffiti, traditional drawing, abstraction and a personal symbolism.