The Spanish artist Sebas Velasco, born in 1988, captures urban environments of changing economic and political structures in large-format murals and oil paintings. In his paintings, he mixes collage-like snapshots from photographs taken on his research trips to former Eastern Bloc countries.

“The painting is a tapestry of time, blending the threads of past, present, and future.”

His work shown here, B Faza 8, is a visual ode to the enduring beauty of the mundane. Focusing on the bygone years of former Yugoslavia, Velasco intertwines the once-united cities of Sarajevo and Belgrade. This collage-inspired masterpiece of research photography celebrates the architectural remnants of socialist optimism: Sarajevo’s spaceship-like rooftops are juxtaposed with the iconic Yugo cars of Belgrade’s city streets. Velasco captures the dynamic light that escapes the nighttime and uses swift brushstrokes to illuminate the melancholic yet romantically nostalgic structures by street light. Through the evocative energy of these imagined landscapes, Velasco elevates the intricate relationships we share with transient spaces and the people who inhabit them.

On loan courtesy of the Gewobag collection.