IKELLA ALONSO
ABOUT
(b. 1971, Madrid, Spain)
Madrid-based artist who began his work in 1991, having to date held over twenty solo exhibitions and a hundred collective ones. Ikella combines in his work his passion for geography and his love for painting. Taking the aerial perspective of his hometown as a reference to pay homage to the painters he admires, he blends the visual, chromatic, and textural elements of the last piece the artist developed in his lifetime with this aerial perspective, creating a composition that treads the line between appropriation and formal innovation.
His work is a constant pictorial evolution transformed into a tribute to his great influences in the art world, starting with Impressionists like Manet, Monet, Cézanne, moving through Van Gogh, and culminating in Mondrian and successors. His work is represented in collections both public and private in Spain, Portugal, and Italy. He has received a dozen awards since the year 2000.
FEATURED ARTWORKS
Vitebsk II | Ikella Alonso
2021 | 150 x 150 cm | Oil on canvas
Paris VII | Ikella Alonso
2024 | 150 x 150 cm | Oil on canvas
Paris VI | Ikella Alonso
2024 | 200 x 200 cm | Oil on canvas
Venecia V | Ikella Alonso
2024 | 200 x 200 cm | Oil on canvas
Hradyzk III | Ikella Alonso
2024 | 200 x 200 cm | Oil on canvas
Dublin III | Ikella Alonso
2018 | 200 x 200 cm | Oil on canvas
CURRENT EXHIBITION
ELEVATED PAINTING
November 22, 2025 - December 4, 2025
A focused retrospective of Ikella Alonso to mark the official launch of his catalogue—an event conceived less as a conventional show and more as a space for thought and critical dialogue. Featuring contributions from Miguel Cereceda, Fernando Castro Flórez, and Carlos Suárez alongside the artist, the program underscored fifteen years of rigorous pictorial research: a language where form, matter, and memory interlace to create works that are both symbolic refuge and critical testimony.
Across three dedicated rooms, the exhibition is not chronological but architected to reveal the core tensions in Alonso’s practice—geometric and lyrical, material and symbolic, intimate and historical. In an art world often driven by immediacy, Elevated Painting advocates for slow looking and durable conviction, positioning Alonso’s oeuvre as a sustained investigation in which material becomes thought and time becomes form.
INQUIRIES ABOUT THIS ARTIST
Contact us if you want to know more about this artist, get information about a specific piece, or view more of their available artworks.
PAST EXHIBITIONS
ELEVATED PAINTING
November 22, 2025 - December 4, 2025
A focused retrospective of Ikella Alonso to mark the official launch of his catalogue—an event conceived less as a conventional show and more as a space for thought and critical dialogue. Featuring contributions from Miguel Cereceda, Fernando Castro Flórez, and Carlos Suárez alongside the artist, the program underscored fifteen years of rigorous pictorial research: a language where form, matter, and memory interlace to create works that are both symbolic refuge and critical testimony.
Across three dedicated rooms, the exhibition is not chronological but architected to reveal the core tensions in Alonso’s practice—geometric and lyrical, material and symbolic, intimate and historical. In an art world often driven by immediacy, Elevated Painting advocates for slow looking and durable conviction, positioning Alonso’s oeuvre as a sustained investigation in which material becomes thought and time becomes form.
THE LEGACY OF ART, REFRAMED IN THE PRESENT
September 2025 - November 2025
In Other Side (The Bridge), Ikella Alonso reimagines iconic images through aerial, cartographic compositions that act as bridges—between past and present, memory and invention. His paintings blend illusion and emotion, creating new ways of seeing rooted in both art history and personal vision.
(UN)VEILING AND FLYING IN THE LANDSCAPE OF PAINTING
September 2024 - March 2025
Ikella Alonso weaves abstraction, cartography, and art history into intricate visual topographies that are at once rooted and transcendent. Inspired by aerial views of cities tied to the great masters, his paintings map imagined landscapes where geometry, color, and memory converge. Drawing from minimalist rigor, lyrical abstraction, and a deep engagement with the legacy of painting—from Rothko to Fra Angelico—Alonso creates layered works that reflect a desire to navigate both the mythic and material. His pieces evoke a meditative drift through art’s labyrinth, inviting viewers to trace hidden connections between space, image, and time.
FLOATING WORLDS
February 2024 - September 2024
In Floating Worlds, Ikella Alonso embarks on a three-year journey through five centuries of Japanese art, geography, and culture. Inspired by both the sensual landscapes of ukiyo-e and Japan’s island topography, the series of 40 paintings reimagines nature from a bird’s-eye view—where color, geometry, and atmosphere merge into abstract cartographies. A tribute to discovery, distance, and immersion.
INTERIOR LANDSCAPES
September 2023 - February 2024
In this homage to Matisse, Ikella Alonso shifts from the aerial logic of the map to a vertical composition—transforming the plan into an elevation. Drawing from satellite views of Le Cateau-Cambrésis, Matisse’s birthplace, Alonso evokes not just geography but memory, conjuring fractured reflections that recall windows opening toward the sea. These works suggest a poetic reawakening of painting: from blueprint to vision, from distance to intimacy.
PLANNED LANDSCAPES
December 2021 - September 2022
In Planned Landscapes, Ikella Alonso pays a dual tribute to painting—through time and place. Merging satellite cartography with painterly tradition, he creates abstract aerial views of the birthplaces of artists he admires, coloring each composition with their distinct palettes.
From Málaga to Rotterdam, from Mondrian’s Amersfoort to Matisse’s Le Cateau-Cambrésis, Alonso constructs homages that are both conceptual and visual. The result is a series that explores the enduring dialogue between geography, memory, and the passage of time in painting.
EVENTS
ENEAS
June 2025
Madrid, Spain
ENEAS was a one-night collective exhibition curated by Saisho in collaboration with Eneaverso.
Held in Madrid, it brought together 21 contemporary artists and over 600 guests—including collectors, curators, and critics—in a multisensory journey through eight levels of artistic experimentation: from composition and material to light, texture, and technique. Inspired by the myth of Aeneas and structured around curatorial criteria rather than trends, ENEAS marked a new approach to experiencing and valuing contemporary art.
