Rubén Calatayud (Arken)

Rubén Calatayud (Spain, 2001) is an artist who has turned his life into a process of search and transformation. Since childhood, his bond with nature was the first driving force of his creativity, spending hours observing patterns, textures, and shapes, discovering that creating was his way of understanding the world. 

Living with ADHD from an early age shaped the way he relates to his surroundings. This gave him a unique sensitivity and energy, which he learned to channel into his creative process, turning restlessness into gesture and movement in his works. 

His artistic path was not linear. At school he often felt out of place and was asked to limit his imagination. Those experiences became the driving force behind his need to create. His training is largely self-taught, enriched by the guidance of his older brother and his mother, both artists, and by his admiration for masters such as Leonardo da Vinci, Velázquez, Van Gogh and Caravaggio. 

Although he has explored multiple disciplines from painting to modelling with clay, his focus today is contemporary painting. His style combines gesture, delicate atmospheres and an expressive use of light to create works that invite the viewer to pause and connect. 

A turning point came during a trip to London, standing before the works of the great masters, where he understood he had to dedicate his life to art. Since then, he has devoted all his energy to developing a personal language, experimenting with techniques and formats to explore themes such as time, contemplation and the human condition. Today, Rubén is one of the young names to keep an eye on in the Spanish art scene. His work is a bridge between personal introspection and collective experience, an invitation to stop and truly look. 

About the Collection 

Before Thought, as its name suggests, explores that suspended moment of calm just before something happens. It is a contemplative space where the horizon does not ask to be understood, only to be observed. 

Rubén creates these pieces as a refuge from the noise of everyday life, a pause that allows us to listen to what is happening within ourselves. In each work, light acts as a symbolic threshold: it signals that something is about to be revealed and reminds us that, once it happens, everything will find its place. The surfaces seem to hold their breath, inviting us to linger a little longer, to contemplate without haste, and to discover in silence a form of resolution. 

Materials & Techniques 

The exploration of materials is an essential part of Rubén’s artistic approach. His works combine acrylic, oil, spray, and airbrushing to create layers of depth and unique atmospheric effects. In many pieces, he dilutes the paint until it becomes almost liquid glazes, achieving transparencies and colour transitions that never repeat, giving each work an unrepeatable character. 

His process is intuitive yet precise: every layer is meant to have purpose, every gesture to contribute to the whole. For Rubén, technique is never an end in itself but a tool to capture a state of mind and translate it into form and colour. This freedom in the use of materials and his constant experimentation give his work a living quality, one that is always evolving. 

Watch the video here.