Paco Pomet (b. 1970, Granada) is a Spanish painter who lives and works in his native Granada. He received his Fine Arts degree from the University of Granada in 1993 and went on to graduate from the School of Visual Arts in New York in 2004.
Pomet’s work occupies a singular space between historical realism and the absurd. His paintings characteristically take photographic images as their starting point, the black and white of his canvases reinforcing the appearance of vintage historical photographs into which he introduces surreal interventions: a burst of impossible neon color, a distorted scale, a quietly monstrous detail.
The effect is at once comic and unsettling, a deadpan rewriting of collective memory. Keen observation, humor and realism combine in his caustic reflections on human existence, where pop references and bright color inject social commentary into faux-historic scenes.
Fascinated by the technological developments of the early twentieth century, Pomet regards the dialogue between photography and painting as essential to his practice, and cites influences as varied as Mark Tansey, René Magritte, The Muppets and Sesame Street.
His international breakthrough has been steady and substantial. His work was featured at the Beijing International Art Biennale, where he received an award for excellence in 2010, and at Dismaland, the bemusement park curated by Banksy in 2015 placing him among a small group of contemporary painters embraced by both the institutional and street-art worlds.
He has held solo exhibitions across Europe and the United States, including Richard Heller Gallery in Santa Monica, The Baker Museum in Naples, Florida, Monya Rowe Gallery in New York, and galleries in Madrid and Copenhagen, and is represented by König Galerie among others.
His works are held in the permanent collections of the Spanish Ministry of Cultural Affairs in Madrid, the Spanish Academy in Rome, the Santander Museum of Fine Arts, IVAM (Valencia Institute of Modern Art), and Colección Solo, Madrid.
