Nevile.143

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Image courtesy of BAS.

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

As for his time as a graffiti artist and urban artist, he himself divides it into two phases. He started at eighteen under the pseudonym "Organo," using the drawing of a heart as his logo. The artist was drawn to the spontaneity that comes with the practice of graffiti, enjoying the moment more than nurturing his ego. Soon he realized that repeatedly reproducing the same element leads to the labeling and categorization of the artist.

Simultaneously, at twenty-five years old, he discovers his passion for screen printing and tattooing. At this stage, he becomes interested in symbolism and chromatics, and investigates the "ignorant" style and the "anti style," two of the most current urban trends.

Recently, during 2025, his attention turned to studio painting, where he synthesizes and applies everything he's learned in other media, supports, and techniques. In traditional painting, he finds a timeless way to express himself, independent of social timings and the mass productivity of images. For Castellnou, it is an intimate space that allows him to narrate his experiences, values, and ways of thinking, understanding, and feeling. In this way, his style integrates various languages: the heritage of graffiti, traditional drawing, abstraction, and a personal symbolism.

The works displayed in the exhibition 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 that the artist undertakes around universal themes such as the solitude of the individual, nostalgia, personal reconstruction, hope and persistence. 

Their work achieves a balance between structure and improvisation. Their plastic language becomes coherent and recognizable, with an identity situated between the urban and contemporary pictorial. It combines schematic figures, fragments of text, recurring symbols, patches of color, and graphic elements that refer to both spontaneous drawing and gestural painting.

Their brushstroke is free and direct, not so measured, although there are areas that denote technical control and contrast with others that are more intuitive and gestural. The color palette plays a more expressive than descriptive role, as it serves to generate emotional climates within the composition. The artist mainly employs oil technique, applied on both wood and canvas. Regarding the stroke, the line manifests almost in a childish or “anti-stylized” manner.