Born in Santander, Spain, in 1980, Okuda San Miguel is currently based in Madrid. Okuda began his artistic journey in 1997, covering the city’s old railroads and abandoned buildings with letters and colour.
He graduated in Fine Arts from the Compultense University of Madrid developing more his technical and multidimensional style drawing and later approached Pop Surrealism and an experimental art form, exploring tensions between nature and the manufactured world. In his art work, rainbow geometric and organic shapes blend together. Bodies without identity, headless animals, and symbols encourage reflection on contemporary social issues. Today, Okuda’s work can be classified as Pop Surrealism but maintains the essence of its roots in the streets.
Deeply influenced by the surrealistic works of Dalí and Magritte, and from the compositions of Hieronymus Bosch as much as Niki de Saint Phalle, Yayoi Kusama, Keiichi Tanaami and Tomokazu Matsuyama, the artist's paintings are able to bring us back to the geometric decomposition of Picasso and Braque.
Though his unique iconographic language, Okuda San Miguel embraces the human conditions and uses his unique style to raise questions on the meaning of life, the contradictions of false freedom, and the nature of society, while reflecting on the conflict between modernity and our roots and how humans are constantly at odds with the world.
In 2015, Okuda completed Kaos Temple, a highlight of his career in which he transformed a church converted into a skate park into a showcase for contemporary art. Since then, he has been sought out by cultural institutions and private brands across the world to work on large-scale public projects, as well as for his multifaceted studio practice, which he began in 2009.
Okuda’s repertoire includes mural and sculptural interventions and gallery exhibitions on four continents. His distinctions include being the first contemporary artist to be chosen for Valencia’s prestigious Falles festival, a spectacular series of sculptures for Boston Seaport and his participation in the Titanes project, designed to promote social inclusion through art.
The artist is most well known for completing a mind-blowing interior for the 'sistine chapel' of skateboarding and transforming an abandoned chapel in Morocco. The artist also colorized the International Church of Cannabis and completed a mind-blowing interior for the 'sistine chapel' of skateboarding, among others.
“I feel totally free when I create something for a public space but I do feel a responsibility for the place where it will live after I leave, and for the people that live there. the first and most direct message in my artworks is positivity and happiness." - Okuda San Miguel
His insatiable appetite for creation has also led him to experiment with other formats, such as sculpture, photography and video. His creations mix colour and geometry with organic shapes to create an evocative symbology.
Dorothy Circus Gallery London in collaboration with Ink and Movement has recently presented “Freedom is the new Rainbow”, a solo show by Okuda San Miguel. The show inaugurated on 16th September 2021, at Dorothy Circus Gallery London. Simultaneously, the Roman premises of Dorothy Circus Gallery hosted a Focus Show dedicated to the artist.
Sophisticated and colourful characters are both present in Okuda's brand new series in which the subjects and objects are bound to the theme of freedom and emancipation.
View the Exhibition
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