Bio
Felipe Almendros (1976) was raised in the neighborhood of Llefià, on the outskirts of Badalona. After traveling to Mexico, where he held his first painting exhibition, he returned to Barcelona to continue experimenting with painting, comics, 2D animation, and video art. This led to the creation of his first graphic novel, Save Our Souls (Apa Apa, 2009), which was presented at Galería ADN in Barcelona alongside a selection of works related to the publication.
In 2010, he devoted himself to the experimentation and development of his most personal painting practice, portraying people from the outskirts of Barcelona. This body of work was exhibited at Hell Gallery in conjunction with the presentation of his new graphic novel, R.I.P. (Penguin Random House, 2011). The media impact of the novel took him to Tokyo (Instituto Cervantes) and Italy (Ratatà Festival), where he presented a new series of realistic portraits alongside original artwork from the graphic novel. In 2014, he exhibited a selection of his visual work at Arts Santa Mònica (Barcelona), as part of a group exhibition featuring the best Catalan artists of the year.
From then on, he continued to explore autobiographical work, both in his literary and pictorial practice, shifting from marginal suburban landscapes to the late-night, rough-edged scenes of Barcelona. In 2017, he published VIP (Penguin Random House), a graphic novel selected by critics and scholars of the comic world as one of the 100 best Spanish comics of all time. The list was published in the prestigious magazine Rockdelux.
In 2021, he became a resident artist at Yoko Art Gallery, where he presented his most recent body of work from the DIY and Ocaña series. The latter is based on the nightlife of Plaça Reial and serves as a personal homage to the Sevillian artist José Pérez Ocaña and to the broader artistic scene that, like him, left a mark during Spain’s transition to democracy. In 2022, he took part in the group exhibition Madrid Metal. Una historia ilustrada de los 80 at CentroCentro.
As an audiovisual artist, he has collaborated on and directed several animated music videos, most notably his ongoing work with the artist and composer Remate. He has also directed music videos for Spanish bands such as Santo Drama and Cora Yako, as well as for composer J. Vega and his own punk rock bands Sex Shop Boyz and Belmonte. Felipe Almendros has also inspired and starred in two fiction documentaries (El arte de frío #1 and Burnout), based on his work, for which he was awarded Best Actor at the Cinespaña Film Festival 2020.
Currently, while continuing to develop his pictorial practice, he is working on two new projects: his fourth graphic novel, to be published by Somos Libros in 2024, and the film adaptation of his graphic novel R.I.P.
PINTURA EXPOSICIONES
- 2008 | BARCELONA | ADN GALLERY
- 2012 | BARCELONA | FREEDONIA GALLERY
- 2014 | BARCELONA | ARTS SANTA MÓNICA
- 2016 | BARCELONA | HELL GALLERY
- 2017 | TOKYO, JAPAN | INSTITUTO CERVANTES
- 2017 | MADRID | FANAC CALLAO
- 2017 | BARCELONA | FNAC EL TRIANGLE
- 2018 | MACERATA, ITALY | RATATA FESTIVAL
- 2018 | MADRID | LIBRERÍA MOLAR
- 2018 | BARCELONA | BIBAV GALLERY
- 2019 | BARCELONA | METEORO GALLERY
- 2021 | BARCELONA | YOKO ART GALLERY
- 2021 | MADRID | CENTROCENTRO CIBELES
COMICBOOKS
- 2009 | SAVE OUR SOULS | ED. APA APA
- 2011 | RIP | ED. PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE
- 2015 | SOS | ED. AGRUME ( FRENCH EDITION )
- 2017 | VIP | ED. PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE
VIDEO ART | MUSIC VIDEO | ANIMACIÓN
- 2012 | REMATE | MUSIC VIDEO ANIMATION | GIGANTE
- 2016 | TECHNOPOLITANS | MUSIC VIDEO | KOALA
- 2018 | CLARA TE CANTA | MUSIC VIDEO | ORGÍA SIDERAL
- 2018 | REMATE | MUSIC VIDEO | DAWN WIENER
- 2019 | MTV | MGZ! TV MAGAZINE | ANIMATIONS
- 2019 | J.VEGA | MUSIC VIDEO ANIMATION | GRAHAM COXON ON DRUGS
- 2020 | SANTO DRAMA | MUSIC VIDEO ANIMATION | DIABLO
- 2020 | REMATE | MUSIC VIDEO ANIMATION | Quanzhou, New Jersey
- 2021 | WILD HONEY | MUSIC VIDEO ANIMATION | Dinosaurios y supermercados
- 2021 | J.VEGA | MUSIC VIDEO ANIMATION | Nostos
- 2022 | CORA YAKO | MUSIC VIDEO ANIMATION | UNO ENTRE UN MILLÓN
- 2022 | SEX SHOP BOYZ | MUSIC VIDEO | BRAVE ENOUGH
CINE
- 2020 | EL ARTE DE FRÍO | BEST ACTOR AWARD CINESPAÑA | FILM BY ANDER DUQUE
- 2024 | BURNOUT | FILM BY ANDER DUQUE & FELIPE ALMENDROS
MUSICA
- 2016 | EP (DARA PROSA) PHILIP ALMONDS
- 2019 | GUITAR PLAYER BAND | SEX SHOP BOYZ
Painting
Sistema De Entretenimiento | Oil on canvas | 60x90cm |
MotorHome | Oil on canvas | 60x90cm |
Sexy Belmonte | Oil on canvas | 40x50cm |
El cielo sobre La mina | Oil on canvas | 200x150cm |
Ocaña #3 | Oil on canvas | 100x1200cm |
Modern Guy | Oil on canvas | 150x100cm |
Meteoro #2 | Oil on canvas | 60x80cm |
Ander | Oil on canvas | 70x100cm |
Ocaña #2 | Oil on canvas | 60x80cm |
Sisters of Merci | Oil on canvas | 60x80cm |
Colonia Güell | Oil on canvas | 60x80cm |
El cielo sobre La mina | Oil on canvas | 200x150cm |
Felipe Almendros: Bambochadas of the 21st Century
Almendros seeks to capture a specific dimension of his reality in which hedonism, critique, and mockery intertwine—elements commonly found in the tone of festivity. With a raw and unembellished style, he portrays all kinds of scenes that may still appear shocking within the realm of fine arts. This is due, on the one hand, to the weight of Western art history, deeply shaped by the influence of Christianity, and, on the other, to our moral frameworks, which tend to reject certain behaviors deemed negative or improper: people consuming drinks—often alcoholic—using drugs, smoking, vomiting, or urinating, in what becomes an ode to the scatological. At the same time, there are also figures engaged in more socially accepted attitudes: dancing, laughing, dressing up, cross-dressing, or simply posing for the artist. Yet pleasure—and vice—are consistently tied to the collective experience of nightlife.
However, within Western art history there is also a tradition, separate from Christian values, of creating intimate, festive narratives in painting. This genre is technically known as bambochade, a subgenre of intimate painting characteristic of Flemish and Dutch art of the Early Modern period. It focuses on depicting moments of leisure and celebration, with scenes populated by figures from carnivals, fairs, and banquets, as well as dancing, singing, music-making, gambling, drunkenness, sexual excess, but also threats, conspiracies, and fights.
It is striking that this type of painting was even praised by the philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, who rejected similar compositions when they were contemporary to him. As he wrote: “this fresh, vigorous freedom and vitality […] spiritual in both conception and representation, constitute the higher soul of such paintings” (Lectures on Aesthetics, 1835–1838, 2007 edition). For Hegel, the aim was to establish artistic beauty as manifested through the spirit in creative action. Thus, for example, a painting that merely imitates reality would always be dismissed by him, since art seeks to capture the essence of reality and express the creativity of our inner world, rather than mimesis—the mere reproduction of what is observed
In this respect, Almendros follows a striking tendency within art history that also appealed to Gustave Courbet, despite the decades—and even centuries—that separate Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Courbet, and Almendros, along with their respective historical contexts. It is worth noting that, beyond this connection, Courbet’s work The Origin of the World (1866) represents an extreme example of intimate painting and the nude genre, as it focuses on the direct depiction of a vulva. In a repressed nineteenth-century society, such a work received very little acceptance, although it was notably commissioned by the Ottoman diplomat Khalil Bey, known for his eccentric tastes.
Today, however, there remains a broadly shared sense of unease when confronting subjects such as genitality, particularly from a realistic perspective. Roughly the same applies to depictions of nighttime revelry. Ultimately, art possesses the freedom to convey a wide range of narratives—to imagine, but also to bear witness to reality—even when the subjects it addresses are not always ethically or morally accepted, or may be perceived as uncomfortable.
Almendros revitalizes the bambochade, bringing it into the present—into the twenty-first century. Through his representations of late-night leisure, he celebrates the burlesque. He reveals a fragment of our time in which taboos still pulse beneath the surface, where beauty—or at least dignity—can be difficult to discern, especially when dealing with forms of entertainment that are, in fact, deeply commonplace. Naturally, certain situations provoke irritation and rejection, but this does not make them any less real.
Above all, Almendros’ work reminds us that it is profoundly autobiographical and inherently documentary. He is an artist of life itself—of life with all its ethical and moral contradictions—rather than of superficiality, so often linked to what succeeds within the art market, which also seeks to establish new canonical “geniuses” of contemporary art.
By Andrea García Casal
Contemporary Art Platform (PAC)
Comicbook
SAVE OUR SOULS | ED. APA APA | BARCELONA |2009 |
SOS | ED. AGRUME | FRANCE | 2015 |
Cover Book
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RIP | ED. PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE | 2011 |
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VIP | ED. PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE | 2017 |
Cover Book
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Films
EL ARTE DE FRÍO | FELIPE ALMENDROS: BEST ACTOR AWARD CINESPAÑA FEST | FILM BY ANDER DUQUE | 2020 |
BURNOUT | FILM BY ANDER DUQUE & FELIPE ALMENDROS | 2025 |
AMAZON PRIME VIDEO
Link >
Vídeo Art | Music video | Animación
SEX SHOP BOYZ | MUSIC VIDEO | BRAVE ENOUGH | 2023 |
BELMONTE | MUSIC VIDEO | ENTRENADOR | 2023 |
Cora yako | MUSIC VIDEO ANIMATION | UNO ENTRE UN MILLÓN | 2022 |
WILD HONEY | MUSIC VIDEO ANIMATION | DINOSAURIOS Y SUPERMERCADOS | 2021 |
REMATE | MUSIC VIDEO ANIMATION | Quanzhou, New Jersey | 2020 |
SANTO DRAMA | MUSIC VIDEO ANIMATION | DIABLO | 2020 |
J.VEGA | MUSIC VIDEO ANIMATION | GRAHAM COXON ON DRUGS |2019 |
REMATE | MUSIC VIDEO | DAWN WIENER | 2018 |
CLARA TE CANTA | MUSIC VIDEO | ORGÍA SIDERAL | 2018 |
REMATE | MUSIC VIDEO ANIMATION | GIGANTE | 2012 |
Prensa
Contact
felipealmendros@gmail.com
+34 659959124