Q:

What does a typical workday in your studio look like? Do you have any rituals, or is every day different?

Azucena González:

Well, I'd like to have a daily routine, but I don't have one, because every day is a new day, it's a new day, and there are issues and situations. There are a few weeks where I dedicate myself more to preparing the canvases; it's more mechanical, and it's working to prepare all the formats, and others that are more to project the idea, and others to execute it. The phase that I enjoy is the execution phase, I like to paint, and let myself go with what I'm doing, but, well, it's all part of the process.

Q:

Before beginning a new work, do you undertake a period of research through sketches, photographs, and notes, or do you prefer to leave space for intuition and spontaneity? 

Azucena González:

The way I usually begin developing an idea is by walking. I used to walk through the city, but these days I spend more time walking in the countryside. It's while I'm walking that ideas begin to emerge, inspired by the things I notice around me, whether in the streets or in nature. For me, that's a very important part of the creative process. 

There's also a process of sketching, it's not that easy, I have to take notes on ideas, because I can forget them, and then they come to my mind again. And I do sketches. They're usually drawings. If I need to depict something specific, like a particular car, brand, or model, I look for reference images and keep them nearby while I work. I begin by developing the composition, then the drawing, and finally the painting itself evolves in a much more intuitive way. 

Q:

How do Spanish culture, and Mediterranean culture more broadly, influence your work?

Azucena González:

I wouldn't describe my work as specifically Spanish. I think it's more deeply rooted in the Mediterranean. I'm from a culturally diverse region of Spain that actually has more in common with parts of Italy than with other regions of the country. So I feel that my work is shaped more by Mediterranean culture than by a specifically Spanish identity. It's influenced by the way of life there, and especially by the arrival of summer. In my region, summer transforms everyday life; the heat changes the rhythm of our days, and that atmosphere has had a profound influence on the works in this exhibition.

Q:

What projects are you currently working on? Is there a new direction you’re eager to explore?

Azucena González:

At the moment, I'm developing a project that I'll be working on throughout the rest of the summer. It's centred on ideas of community and social connection. I feel that, at least where I come from, there's a growing loss of social cohesion. Everyday forms of togetherness are gradually disappearing, partly because of gentrification and other contemporary changes.

With this new project, I'd like to celebrate those shared moments: spending time with friends, sitting on café terraces, sharing meals, talking, debating, those simple forms of being together. That's my starting point, and from there the project gradually takes shape. I usually begin with a single idea, and then others emerge along the way. I never really know where the work will lead until it's finished.

Q:

How did this collection come to life? 

Azucena González:

This project was born from a need to slow down. My work explores landscape through a more sensory approach, and in the context of contemporary life, I felt it was important to celebrate slowness and a sense of calm that are so characteristic of the Mediterranean. I wanted to return to the essence of summer: a season of rest, suspended time, and heat. The cicadas naturally became part of the project, because their song immediately evokes that warmth and those quiet afternoon hours of the siesta. 

Q:

What is your relation with sensuality and seduction ? 

Azucena González:

I don't think sensuality is something overt in my work. It's more subtle, almost suspended. To me, nature itself embodies sensuality and seduction, you can see it in something as simple as the encounter between a flower and a bee. I think we've gradually become disconnected from that kind of sensuality, and in doing so, we've also become disconnected from ourselves. For me, sensuality creates a sense of connection, and through that connection comes a certain kind of liberation. 

Q:

How do you represent sensuality in your work? 

Azucena González:

When it comes to sensuality, it's not something I'm consciously thinking about while I'm developing a painting. It emerges naturally through the atmosphere of the work, almost out of necessity. I don't begin with the intention of saying, "I want this painting to convey sensuality." Instead, I start with an idea, and as I paint, the work gradually guides me. It evolves through the colour palette, the atmosphere, and the feelings it begins to communicate. In the end, those sensations belong to the viewer. Each person brings their own memories, experiences, and sensibility to the work. So I think sensuality is something that sometimes emerges and sometimes doesn't, it isn't something I deliberately try to create. 

Q:

There is a certain familiarity that runs through your paintings. The places, gestures, and light seem to belong less to a specific memory than to an emotional one. Is evoking this kind of emotional memory important to your work?  

Azucena González:

I'm drawn to things that feel forgotten or left behind, a chair, a piece of clothing, traces of an ordinary moment that someone has lived. Memory plays a central role in this series. Even though the figures are mostly adults, childhood is deeply present throughout the work. For me, summer is inseparable from childhood: those long holidays, almost three months long, when life was made up of simple moments, playing ping-pong, going to the beach, spending time by the pool, or resting in the garden afterwards.

I think these paintings are rooted less in precise memories than in the sensations they leave behind. They are filled with sensory memories: the scent of a fig tree, the smell of your grandmother's house, the sea air, and, of course, the song of the cicadas.

Q:

Your paintings seem suspended between a "before" and an "after." What draws you to those moments when, seemingly, nothing is happening? 

Azucena González:

I see each painting as capturing a single moment, one in which something may have happened just before, or may happen just after. The painting only offers that fragment, and it's up to the viewer to imagine the story that surrounds it.

That approach is closely connected to certain scenes from cinema that have stayed with me over the years. In my memory, they remain as a single image, a colour, a moment that conveys the feeling of heat and summer. As for the works that echo mythological or classical paintings, I'm interested in offering a contemporary interpretation of those recurring themes. I reinterpret them through my own personal experience, which is also shaped by a shared, collective memory.

Q:

Do you hope to convey a particular message through your paintings? 

Azucena González:

Well, I'm not trying to convey a specific message, it is more a feeling that evokes one's own memory and can transport that feeling of emptiness, of temporal contemplation that leads to that state of summer, in this case, in the case of this exhibition.

Q:

Color seems to shape not only the image, but also the atmosphere of each scene. How do you develop a palette that conveys warmth, shade, and the passage of time?

Azucena González:

Well, the truth is that I paint a lot with the seasons. When it's cold, I need to paint with colors that give me warmth. When it's hot, I need freshness. In these images there is a lot of green, a lot of nature, which is that refuge garden after the heat, of the open field, the beach, where you can be. So the palette also has to do with the hours. There are many reds and violets for the sunsets. The sunset for me is also something magical, for many people, and the colors are there. So the palette has to do with the moods and also with the landscape, with the temperature that I want to transmit. 

Q:

Do you seek to guide the viewer’s gaze, or do you prefer to let them construct their own narrative? 

Azucena González:

Well, it's a figurative work, which has an orientation to the viewer, because there is a microhistory represented, but obviously I like to think that the viewer has his own idea and his own interpretation of that image.