I was born in Jaén on May 23, 1993, and I grew up in Los Villares where I spent my high school years and where I started painting my first graffiti, more as a passionate game than a vocation. It was around 2008-2009 when I decided, supported by my family, especially my mother, that I was going to become a great figure in the world of contemporary art.

(I remember vividly a day when we got caught painting in the streets and got fined… there were several friends with me and we all got a strong reprimand that day, but my mother changed my life. It might seem trivial, but it was a wonderful gesture. She told me that if I wanted to paint walls, I should paint the ones at home, that there they wouldn’t chase me.)

I spent about 4 years at the José Nogué Art School in Jaén where I began my training as an artist. I completed 4 different courses, two of them serving as stepping stones to a higher degree. In Illustration, although I didn’t obtain the title, I was hired for a beautiful project to illustrate the Carlos V Palace in Jaén, and I was paid for it since I wasn’t working on an internship but was contracted.

Shortly after, I moved to Granada, specifically to the Albaicin. Even without achieving financial independence, I started earning some money through painting contests, murals, or tattooing. But I always aimed towards painting, which has been both frustrating and satisfying at times. Every step you climb, you see 100 new ones to the summit, which becomes less clear but shines brighter with each step… And little by little, I built a language and a confidence in myself and my work, carrying all the gear from one contest to another, facing 1000 NOs for every yes, but with more determination than expectations.

Perhaps 2017 was the most important year of my life. At 24, I had my first solo exhibition at the Ceferino Navarro gallery in Granada. (The funny part was how I convinced the gallery owner to exhibit there. After several failed attempts to show him my work via email, I showed up at his gallery with the paintings I could carry, placing them wherever I could for him to see and give me a response in person. Four months later, I exhibited at the gallery, opening the season with a solo show.) That same year, I met Karina, the person who has inspired and helped me work the most, also the person I’ve painted the most in my life, a true muse and a reference for my work and my life. (Words from a fellow artist friend: Juan, I’ve been following you for years, and there was something you learned or something that happened to you that made you click and level up. I replied, jokingly, that it was the time when I met Karina.) Two years later, in 2019, I presented another solo exhibition, this time in Madrid (The Blue Ant Gallery). It was a wonderful evening, the room was packed, and I felt very flattered but dissatisfied, not with being there but with wanting more from myself, which is probably the worst and best part of this job – being unsatisfied, although I don’t think it’s about the job, it’s about passion, because this job must be purely passionate.

After two years of lockdown where I continued working and selling original artwork non-stop through social media, sometimes selling them within minutes, as I painted more or less one piece per day, I would upload photos of the paintings on Instagram, where they sold so quickly that I had to tell collectors that they had to wait a bit for the paintings to dry before I could send them.

This year, in 2022, I exhibited solo again, while also having a showing at the Jaen Museum and at the Goldshtein Satoor Gallery in PARIS. Three simultaneous exhibitions and over 100,000 followers on social media, and I only think about what the next step will be.

I hope to at least continue having the luck of having family and friends who are already like family, who love and support me wherever I go.