The Director

Casting characters, designing sets and building props, visionary artist Ramón Hurtado brings his love of storytelling and academia into his artwork

- Ramón Hurtado

Like many other would-be artists, I spent much of my childhood daydreaming. One day I was an archaeologist uncovering forgotten treasures, the next, I was an explorer traversing the deepest reaches of space. And very often, my imaginary adventures demanded more; they called out to be given tangible form. So, I built things. A lot of them. Whether it was pirate ships made of Lego bricks or race cars from wood scraps, I was a child intent on building.

Over the years, I began to see painting as a way to experience the world—to ask questions of it and of myself, to process and to offer these reflections to others in the hope that they will find value in them too.

Unsurprisingly, I eventually fell in love with 19th-century academic paintings. Their ability to vividly transport us to different worlds, both real and imagined, spoke to the same desire to dream and to build.