FLOATING WORLDS
Ikella Alonso
DATES & LOCATION
February 2024 – September 2024
S Gallery Madrid
c/ Ferraz 78, 28008 Madrid
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
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.



FEATURED ARTWORKS
ABOUT THE ARTIST
IKELLA ALONSO
Madrid-based artist whose work merges aerial cartography and art history. Through vibrant, textured homages to masters like Van Gogh and Mondrian, he reimagines painting as a dialogue between geography, memory, and modern abstraction.
EXHIBITION COMMENTARY
Floating world
2024
The term “floating world” refers to the nocturnal world of pleasure, leisure, and intoxication, which formed the backdrop of many of the paintings by Japanese artists in the first third of the 20th century. And, in turn, to the physical, geographical space of the islands that make up Japan. Two floating worlds: that of the map and that of the senses. The landscape seen from the sky offers a new appreciation of the earth. It provides a fresh perspective. Plowed fields, iridescent-colored crops that change with the light. The landscape in the distance shows us the sublimity of nature. Color, volume, geometry, form, light, perspective. This series aims to represent Japanese art from the 16th century to the 21st century. It spans five hundred years of Japanese art, so I would say it’s a very ambitious series. It’s the first time I’ve worked on a country and focused on artists I had never heard of, let alone knew. Quite a challenge, which for three years has allowed me to discover the Japanese world on different levels: the pictorial world, the literary world, the gastronomic world, and the geographical world. A deep immersion. It consists of a set of 40 paintings, created from 2020 to 2023.