Art

Expanded painting

David Moreno Rubio has been painting since he was thirteen, long before he studied architecture. His work sits mainly within abstraction, with the odd figurative element, and it is about matter: different textures, techniques and materials in every piece.

Each work is built as much as painted. David gathers wood, cloth, cardboard and worn objects from the countryside and assembles them with paint until the two can no longer be pulled apart. Cracks and marks of use stay in view, because they are what carry the memory of the land. That is why his work has been described as "expanded painting": painting that spills off the flat surface into the ground between painting, sculpture and architecture.

His training as an architect shows in every piece: in composition, space, light and materiality, the same concerns that drive the studio's buildings.

He first came to Belmonte (Cuenca) around 2011 and has kept a close bond with the town ever since: much of his work was painted there, and there he designed and built a house in the old town. From 19 to 25 August 2026 the Casa de la Música Virgen de Gracia in Belmonte showed "Castilla: Landscapes, Villages and People through the eyes of the Generation of '98", twenty-two paintings and sculptures curated by Antonio Barriga Sierra.