The work of Gómez Bueno follows the complex and

ironic legacy of Pop Art, particularly the strand with the most social implications. His are

works constructed like games, at once innocent and perverse, without a manifest

critical distance. They are radical and festive, ambiguous and devastating, complex

and transgressive. In the last instance, one could say that what defines art in social

terms is its price. Gómez Bueno, then, has faced the issue head-on by working on the

frontier that joins and divides art and market in works devoted to advertising – the most

brazen and mythomane exhibitionism. He deploys radical humour and irony to move

along the narrow line that separates apparent veneration for the irresponsible and

hedonistic consumer culture and an acid, critical stance that makes no concessions.

His signature is a logo comprising his name placed over a schematic skull-andcrossbones.

Gómez Bueno is a sharpshooter from a space of freedom who arrogates

the right to appropriate any icon. He digs into the limits of social structuring and the

possibilities of transgressing them: the limits of alienation created by the media,

religion, film and advertising.

The way he builds his work in technical terms – which is consistent with his frontier

poise – resembles the industrial finish of large mural outdoor billboards advertising new

film releases, but also pays tribute to more traditional oil-on-canvas techniques, with

exquisite shade-ins and perfect draughtsmanship. In the middle of a flat colour, we see

the intentional marks of large, square-ended brushes. More than the brushwork of a

painter, they signal the ambiguity of an impossible and futilely desirable virtuosity.

In his La puerta de Dokodemo (2003 – ‘Dokodemo’s Gate’), Gómez Bueno gives an

interesting twist to his artistic trajectory by opening up an internal ‘reverse angle shot’.

The painting is a large canvas with five repetitions of a figure in austere greens and

purples, executed with masterly strokes of the brush. The signs of assertive, imposed

communication have disappeared, leaving the naked image and its manifest ambiguity.

His other works are not necessarily more explicit, but are certainly more obviously

narrative. The artist focuses on narcissistic characters – a star, a religious leader, a

presidential candidate, a surf-champ manager or a film-maker. But in the set of works

surrounding La puerta de Dokodemo he is far more introspective and intimate. A

cloned, solitary being repeated in elongating mirrors: this expresses a deep perplexity,

indecision, uncertainty, the confusion aroused by looking out of the door that opens

onto limitless copying in a computerised world. This is the game that lets the artist

enter a universe of distorting mirrors, of measured and multiplied feelings and reactions

which, though variable, are nonetheless predictable. The work remains at the same

high level of ambiguity as earlier pieces, resting on complex relations among festively

ironic constituents. Now Gómez Bueno plays with the polysemy of the image itself,

which transmits its perplexity to the viewer – a necessarily active and involved viewer.