Chema Madoz
2Sin título, 2025 50 x 60 cm Fotografía b/n sobre papel Ed. 1/15
“I would like the viewer to leave the room with the awareness that traveling does not require to move, that everything around us can reveal a different side simply by changing our point of view, and that poetry can exist right in our own room. ”
Galería Elvira González presents, during the PHotoEspaña 2026 Festival, the fifth solo exhibition by photographer Chema Madoz (Madrid, 1958). The exhibition brings together 34 photographs from 2024 and 2025.
INSTALLATION VIEW: Chema Madoz 2026, Photo Courtesy of Galería Elvira González
For decades, Madoz has produced his images from everyday objects, photographed in the studio with natural light. Rooted in surrealism and influenced by René Magritte, his work is intuitive and driven by the unexpected. “What interests me is the idea of discovery, of perceiving mystery within the everyday.” He works with one or two elements at a time, only with black and white which brings him to childhood and the dreamlike. The combinations he establishes between objects disrupt conventional logic, and in this way, his photographs convey the sensation of encountering something both familiar and strange.
Courtesy of Brutos TV and Galería Elvira González
Among the new works, a recurring motif in his career, a cage, appears open; the birds that have escaped now scatter across a map. In another image, a falconry glove holds, instead of the talons of a bird of prey, a butterfly. In this way, Madoz introduces us to the idea that things in the world are not entirely self-evident. No matter how domesticated they might be, or how clearly named or defined, objects always retain something for themselves.
Sin título, 2025 60 x 50 cm Fotografía b/n sobre papel Ed. 1/15
Madoz describes it as follows: “For me, in some way, each object carries with it a word or a set of concepts determined by its use, form, or evocative capacity. Playing with them, when determining their position or their relationship with others, alters and multiplies their possible meanings. It opens up cracks in perception and offers us an idea of reality that is tremendously malleable.”
Chema Madoz en la Galería Elvira González © Alex Mena
Chema Madoz (Madrid, 1958) is a central figure in the contemporary Spanish photography scene. From the 1990s onward he developed a personal visual language rooted in the everyday object as a starting point for the construction of images with a strongly conceptual character. In 1999 the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía presented Objetos 1990–1999, the first exhibition of a living Spanish photographer held at the museum. In 2000 Madoz was awarded with the Premio Nacional de Fotografía from the Ministry of Culture, and that same year he became the first Spanish artist to receive the Premio PhotoEspaña. His work has been shown in numerous Spanish and international institutions, including the Real Sociedad Fotográfica de Madrid, the Canal de Isabel II in Madrid, Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Netherland Photomuseum in Rotterdam, the Fondazione M. Marangoni in Florence, Museo de Bellas Artes in Caracas, and FotoFest International in Houston. In October 2026, Canal de Isabel II will host Manual de un distraído, a selection of 94 photographs dated between 2015 and 2025.
The exhibition opened on May 5 and will conclude on July 10, 2026. For more information about this exhibition and others at Galería Elvira González please visit their site here. The gallery can also be found on Facebook, Instagram, X, and Vimeo.
