Be Fernández is a passionate artist from Madrid. Her work is featured in our ‘One by One’ Group Exhibition. Continue reading to learn more about Be’s life and work.

Through bright colors, sharp contrasts, and the strength of prints and textures, she represents cheerful scenes with a certain Neo-Pop aesthetic that will take you back to the 80s. Her inspiration comes from the contemporary city: She uses constant references to the current world and her interests, such as fashion and streetwear culture, present throughout all her work. She mainly works in digital and acrylic, but she has worked in a wide variety of formats throughout her life

Can you share a bit about how your artistic journey and what led you to develop your current vibrant and dynamic style?
Painting has been with me since I was a child, in painting I find a place of calm and plenitude that I can't find anywhere else. I learned to draw from the comics my father kept in my room. When I was 17 I discovered street art and I was amazed, so I started creating huge drawings on paper and pasting them up on the walls of my city at night with a friend, the feeling that my drawings were going to connect with strangers even if it was only for a second, instead of staying in my folders, gave me a lot of motivation and made me dedicate as much time as possible to drawing and improving from then on.

At the age of 20 I tried digital art, a technique that, despite the lack of space and material, allowed me to continue to evolve my style until it became what it is today. My style is a mix of elements that I have find along the way and have accompanied me for the rest of the journey, a mixture of everything I am and I have lived, and everything that has ever inspired me in my life.

You mention that you are inspired by the Pop art aesthetic from the 80s, how does this influence shape your style?
Paintings speak about the life of the creator and the social context in which it is made, for me, Pop Art is very much related to my current experiences because I believe that society has not changed that much since the 80s in many aspects. My inspiration and influences are still affected by the consumer society and the fugacity of attention. My work is colorful and intense but simple in form, I think that without being very conscious I have ended up developing a language that allows me to connect with people at a time when attention is becoming more and more limited.

How does Madrid continue to inspire and impact your work?
My inspiration comes from the contemporary city and life and for me, having been born and raised here, Madrid is a great representation of it. I am very inspired by its people, the way they dress, its facades and its bars, its colors.

Have you always been interested in fashion? Did you think that you would one day work with notable brands like Vogue and Adidas...?
Since I was a child the way I dress has been one of the most powerful tools of expression for me, I have always been interested in fashion and how to use it to have fun and communicate. You can never imagine where life is going to take you but I have always wanted it to take me in those directions so that's amazing.

What does your day-to-day creative process look like?
My creative process is somewhat different depending on whether I work in digital or acrylic media. For my work as a digital illustrator I have to be more effective with my time and I try to follow a scheme starting with researching references and ideas; sketching with simple shapes; research, experimentation and colour palette selection; colour sketching; and detail work and final illustration. I try to control as much as possible the time I dedicate to each phase in order to deliver my projects on time and with the right quality.

My canvas paintings are much freer, the inspiration usually comes before the painting exists, it is my most personal work and I almost always know what I want to represent before I have even finished the previous painting. My canvases come out of my head and what is happening to me at that moment in a much more personal and deeper way, so the process is a bit wilder and more intuitive.

How do you balance working with digital and acrylic mediums? Do you have a preference of one over the other?
I love painting in acrylics because I feel that I connect in a very intense way with my creations during the whole process and I can be much more intuitive and honest. It is also a part of me where I respect my time and allow myself to just enjoy without being harsh or rushing.
Digital is great because it allows me to experiment without limits and without fear of making mistakes with things that I can then apply to my canvases, which also end up shaping my style. The creative work as an illustrator that I do in digital is more challenging creatively because I have to understand needs and requirements that are not my own, this is very enriching and allows me to keep growing and improving. I can't imagine my life or my career without the mix of both.

What emotions or responses do you aim to evoke in viewers?
I convey the world as I experience it. The idea of connecting with strangers and making them feel something even if they have very different experiences and lives confirms to me that we are actually much more alike than we think, and I find that very powerful. My work is lively and joyful even if sometimes it speaks of raw feelings.

Looking back, is there a particular project that is especially significant to you?
If I had to say one, the first one that comes to mind was a mural I did for Netflix in Spain a few years ago, this project was the beginning of many more that came later and I think it helped my career a lot. At the time I still couldn't live as a full time artist so I had to combine it with my other work and I remember I had to ask for a day off to be able to do it. A few months later I left my job of the moment and was able to dedicate myself to be full time artist.