Irving Ramó

Meet The Artist:

21 September 2026

Meet The Artist:

Irving Ramó

21 September 2026

Q: Your paintings often blur the line between beauty and violence. Why do you think we are so drawn to images that make us feel both attraction and discomfort at the same time?

A: I'm interested in this moment when there is friction between them, this desire that links them.

I think part of this comes from my own childhood. I grew up on an Air Force base in Manta, Ecuador, so I was constantly surrounded by these incredibly powerful machines. As a child, I was fascinated by them: by their shapes, their design, their speed, and also by the whole heroic image built around them.

But at the same time, they are made for destruction. So maybe growing up surrounded by this paradox stayed with me: something can be incredibly beautiful and seductive in its form, while at the same time being designed to destroy.

Q: Your work suggests that history repeats itself through cycles of power and conflict. Do you believe art has the ability to interrupt those cycles, or is its role simply to make us more aware of them?

A: I don't know if art has the ability to interrupt those cycles directly. Maybe what it can interrupt is the way we look at them.

In many ways, I don't think we have changed that much. We keep repeating the same patterns, the same needs. We hunt, we desire, we fuck, we pray, we love, we believe, we scream, we want, want, want and want. What changes are the instruments, the artifacts we create to pursue those needs, and perhaps our ability to use them.

And the body is somehow the first, and possibly the last, to experience this cycle. So, the individual body, but also the idea of this collective body as a witness of time. A body that experiences, carries and accumulates all these layers of inheritance is something that fascinates me.

"Therefore, the images I produce, I try to see them as another layer added to this collective body through my gaze, and the time I'm on board here. Hopefully, I can leave a good ‘abono’ for the next layers."

Q: As the co-founder of Ventana Project, you've created opportunities for people to encounter art in unexpected places. What have these encounters taught you about the way people engage with contemporary art?

A: Having the opportunity to build and develop Ventana made me understand the power of gathering around common interests and passions, and how these can become an engine for a community. It gave me a strong sense that building together is much more powerful. The strength is in the collective.

It has become very personal for me as well. Some of the people I met through Ventana have become what I consider my extended family in Berlin.

I also think the fact that Ventana started in public space was very important. We started working with vitrines in the streets and in subway stations, and there was something about the vitrine that worked like a stage: the works were there as participants, and people could pass by, return, and see what was happening again and again, outside the usual gallery dynamics.

I think there is something in repetition, in being able to organically revisit the work, to return to it and slowly peel it back, layer by layer. And I think it is precisely in this process of peeling that the work reveals itself differently over time, and the connections that emerge can become much more interesting, personal, and meaningful, especially in contrast to this wildly fast way we consume images and information nowadays.

Q: It seems like you didn't arrive at your artistic style right away. How did you find your visual language, and what advice would you give to artists who are still searching for their own?

A: Well, I don't know if it's specifically about style, but I want to think of it as a flavour. We are all looking for a particular one, this specific flavour that resonates with you, vibrates with you, and that you want to share or communicate.

Sometimes, for some people, it arrives and tastes the way they want quite quickly, and sometimes it takes much longer to ‘cocinarlo’. In my case, I don't know if I've already arrived at my own, but I enjoy the process of it, and I'm deeply committed to keeping working on it. I also find it important to respect every layer you've gone through, so the next one can be better.

Don't stop and trust. Well, stop if it's burning…

Q: If you could have a conversation with any artist from history, who would it be and what would you ask them?

A: Probably Caravaggio. And I would ask him: how many people did you actually stab?

But seriously, I would love to understand how someone surrounded by so much violence could create such an extraordinarily beautiful, sensitive, and sensual body of work.