The 29-year-old Spanish Painter Who Rose To Fame With A Lily Allen Album Cover Sets Her Sights On L.a.

Spanish creator Nieves González arrives successful Los Angeles for her first U.S. solo accumulation having already knowledgeable a sensation of fame.

The 29-year-old caught nan attraction of nan creation and manner worlds past twelvemonth aft being discovered connected Instagram and commissioned to overgarment nan screen of Lily Allen’s medium “West End Girl.” Depicting nan vocalist arsenic a Baroque aristocrat clad successful modern designer fashion, nan image helped propel González onto an world stage.

Collectors person taken notice. The 13 paintings successful “A Friendship Story,” opening Saturday astatine Richard Heller Gallery successful Santa Monica, person already sold out, according to nan gallery, pinch prices ranging from $4,000 to $20,000.

Elle mag dubbed González “Fashion’s Favorite New Artist,” while exhibitions successful Rome, Paris, Belfast and Bilbao, Spain, expanded her estimation crossed Europe.

González developed her classical yet defiantly modern attack while studying astatine nan University of Seville, wherever Spanish masters specified arsenic Diego Velázquez and Francisco de Zurbarán painted successful nan naturalist Baroque tradition. Drawing liberally from fashion, creation history and mundane life, she often dresses nan subjects of her portraits successful puffer jackets — garments she wears herself during nan acold winters of Granada, Spain, wherever she lives. The material, she said, recalls nan sculptural rendering of cloth successful paintings by Zurbarán and Velázquez: nan folds, nan volumes, nan precocious shine.

Nieves González often dresses her subjects successful puffer jackets.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

“It useful beautifully from a ocular standpoint,” she said, speaking Spanish during an question and reply astatine Santa Monica’s Bergamot Station a fewer days earlier nan accumulation opened. Wearing bluish jeans and a pinkish button-down blouse, she echoed nan pastel blues and pinks that look passim galore of nan useful surrounding her.

“Fashion inspires me,” she said. “Just arsenic 17th period artists drew inspiration from nan manner of their time — often creating paintings that served arsenic catalogs of existent styles — I do nan same,” she said. “The extremity is to not simply convey a circumstantial connection aliases ideology but to create a testament to a procreation and nan era successful which we live.”

This fall, González’s coating “La Sfida” (2025) will look successful nan Städel Museum’s accumulation “Mary Magdalene. Sin. Pray. Love” successful Frankfurt, Germany, alongside useful by Lady Gaga, Marlene Dumas and Auguste Rodin. The coating depicts Mary Magdalene pinch long, flowing hair, draped successful a regal reddish garment and clutching a skull — a modern mentation of 1 of Christianity’s astir enduring figures.

“Nieves González is nan youngest of these artists and, astatine nan aforesaid time, astir apt nan 1 who astir intimately follows successful nan contented of nan Old Masters,” curators Bastian Eclercy and Stefan Roller wrote successful an email.

The Santa Monica accumulation marks an improvement from nan paintings that established González’s reputation. Earlier useful often centered connected solitary women posed pinch nan self-possession of royal portraits aliases belief icons. “A Friendship Story” focuses connected relationships betwixt pairs of women, exploring friendship, intimacy, support and shared experience.

For González, relationship is 1 of nan astir profound aspects of women’s lives and a taxable she felt deserved greater attraction successful painting.

Victoria Rios, a curator who useful pinch González, said nan artist’s paintings “rewrite nan narratives of nan past, rewrite nan history of martyrdom and spot women astatine nan center.”

“Nothing successful her coating is arbitrary,” Rios said successful an email. “Every general determination is besides an ethical one.”

“The equine elevates nan art; symbolically, it carries connotations of elegance and nobility,” Nieves González said. “It seemed for illustration a measurement to elevate nan conception of friendship.”

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

González often turns creation humanities conventions connected their head. In “Salir a robar caballos: Go retired to bargain horses,” she replaces nan archetypal image of a gallant man connected horseback pinch 2 young women dressed successful puffer and vinyl jackets, posed for illustration modern Amazons atop rearing horses.

“The equine elevates nan art; symbolically, it carries connotations of elegance and nobility,” González said. “It seemed for illustration a measurement to elevate nan conception of friendship. It besides has an constituent of play, escapade and fun, since having nosy is portion of nan enslaved too.”

The creator besides sees her activity done a feminist lens.

“We unrecorded successful a patriarchal society, and so, unfortunately, I beryllium to nan oppressed conception of that society, and my activity relates to that,” she said. “It stems from a struggle, an knowing and a process of redefining concepts that we person historically established arsenic normal, earthy and habitual.”

“I americium willing successful portraying america arsenic brave and powerful, sometimes moreover pinch an aerial of haughtiness,” she said.

Another painting, “Something’s crossed complete maine and I can’t spell back” (2026), captures González’s fusion of humanities and modern references. Two women dressed successful greenish and pinkish fur cradle each other’s heads, reimagining medieval depictions of cephalophores — Christian martyrs who transportation their severed heads while continuing to preach aliases pray.

The title comes from a pivotal statement successful nan 1991 movie “Thelma & Louise,” marking nan turning constituent for Geena Davis’ characteristic Thelma, afloat committing to her yet fatal escapade pinch Susan Sarandon’s Louise.

Nieves González, “Holding You,” 2026 (oil connected canvas).

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

González builds each coating from what she calls a “Frankenstein” — a integer composite assembled from archival photographs, recovered images and reference material. The coating process past takes over. A mid-project sojourn to nan Prado Museum successful Madrid, for instance, mightiness nonstop her backmost to nan integer sketch to propulsion successful a compositional constituent from Velázquez earlier returning to nan canvas. “The last consequence often ends up being wholly different from what I initially envisioned,” she said.

Heller began representing González, whom he calls an “original voice,” past twelvemonth aft being introduced to her activity by different painter.

Staging her first U.S. solo accumulation successful Los Angeles alternatively than New York reflects what he sees arsenic a much relaxed situation for an emerging artist, without nan glare and expectations of nan New York creation world.

“L.A. feels a small little constrained,” Heller said. “It feels a small much free.”

González’s image of Allen is presently connected position astatine London’s National Portrait Gallery, hanging successful nan aforesaid room arsenic a self-portrait by David Hockney. She said while it “has been very important successful position of media exposure,” exhibitions and master opportunities were already successful mobility earlier nan medium screen brought wider attention.

“I’ve ever said that what I want to do successful life is make a surviving from painting,” she said.

Mission accomplished.