Personal Picks: Natalia Dualde

Personal Picks is a new format where someone from our team selects four artworks that resonate with them on a personal level. From intimate favorites to unexpected discoveries, each selection offers an individual, behind-the-scenes glimpse into the gallery’s evolving universe—one artwork at a time.

Next up: Natalia Dualde. Part of our Gallery Management since the gallery’s very beginning, Natalia brings over twenty years of experience and a deep connection to the artists she works with.

With her Personal Picks, she offers a more intimate perspective, sharing four paintings that trace her deep and personal connection with figurative art, a genre she describes as “capable of capturing emotions, memories, and small truths we sometimes don’t even realize we carry within us.” Through these choices, Natalia reflects on what it means to build a lifelong relationship with art and artists, one shaped by conversation, curiosity, and affection.

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After more than twenty years working at the gallery, I’ve learned that figurative art holds a special kind of magic: it can capture emotions, memories, and small truths we sometimes don’t even realize we carry within us. My relationship with the works I’ve chosen is not just professional, but woven from years of encounters, conversations, studio visits, and shared coffees. These four paintings represent unique moments with the artists and reflect my way of approaching art: with curiosity, affection, and respect.

The first piece is a landscape by Guim Tió, an artist I’ve seen grow not only in his artistic career but also personally. Over the years, I’ve shared long conversations with him about life, art, and, of course, books, a passion we share that always brings us new references for looking at the world. His landscapes resonate with me because they depict places I also inhabit: La Cerdanya, the Alps, l’Empordà. When I see them in his paintings, I feel they are not only painted from observation, but from the intimate experience of walking through them and living them.

Iván Franco, for me, is a master of perception. His works are so realistic that on more than one occasion they’ve even been accepted into photography contests! And yet what fascinates me most is not just his technical virtuosity (his precision with light, grain, and texture), but how he makes you question what you’re actually seeing. Standing before his paintings, you find yourself wondering: is this a drawing or is it a photo? His works pause right on that threshold, in that place where the real and the fictional blur together. I remember the first time he showed me a portrait in his studio: we just stood there in silence, reflecting on how something that seemed so obvious was actually full of ambiguity. With Iván, I’ve learned that figuration is not simply about imitating reality, but about questioning how we build it, how we remember it, and how we feel it.

The third work is a colorful portrait by Xevi Solà, an artist who always surprises me. I’ve had the privilege of knowing him closely, and I even asked him to paint my portrait! From the very first moment, I felt how intimate and generous his work is: every gesture conveys care, observation, and a deep connection with the person before him. His paintings are full of unique, eccentric, beautiful characters captured in modest and intimate moments, and that sensitivity touches me deeply. I’m fascinated by the spontaneity with which Xevi paints: his figures don’t need to tell the whole story, they simply exist. And I love to look at them and let each color and gesture speak to me.

Finally, the last work I’ve chosen is this miniature painting by David Macho. David has an infectious energy that turns any conversation about art into a conversation about life, always filled with laughter and sharp insights. He is young, brilliant, and witty, yet at the same time tremendously lucid: behind his humor lies a critical gaze that refuses to settle. His paintings are like him: playful, unexpected, and at the same time profound. They make you laugh, but they also make you think about how we construct our world and the absurdity of the visual culture around us. With David, I’ve learned that figurative art doesn’t have to be solemn: it can be ironic, playful, and profoundly human.

These four works, and the moments I’ve shared with each artist, form an intimate map of my relationship with painting. They are memories and emotions intertwined with the personalities and sensitivities of those who created them. Each one teaches me to pause over detail, to question what seems obvious, to let myself be surprised by the image, and above all, to enjoy art as a constant, living dialogue, full of nuance, affection, and new emotions always waiting to be discovered.
Natalia Dualde