Drawing has always accompanied me throughout my life. Every time I visit my grandma, on her kitchen wall, a drawing is hanging since I was 4 years old. It is a drawing of my village’s church and it is clear that my fascination for urban scenes was already present.

I also remember the drawing of the purple and blue airplane, which identified my coat rack at the primary school, and which still identifies me so much. It seems that my curiosity to discover other cultures and languages was already written before I was aware of it. It didn’t take me long to experiment with painting and create my first oil painting at the age of 7, an interior patio in a village in La Mancha, Spain. Now, I am not surprised when I think that a decade later, I moved to Madrid to study architecture. 

I especially identify myself with figurative painting and with the prominence of colour in my compositions. Urban and landscape themes continue to be a recurrent theme in my creations. I understand drawing and painting as a means of personal expression, that allows us to understand the world around us. Drawing is observing, thinking, or even understanding the nature of light through optics and perspective. Drawing is not being afraid of mixing colours, experimenting, playing, and discovering our inner and abstract world.

Flo Montealegre: Architect, painter, drawer and illustrator