The Biscuit Factory blog interview
Hi Alex, could you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your background, both personally and creatively?
I’m originally from Barcelona, where I studied Fine Arts and Design at the University of Barcelona. Since 2010, I’ve lived in several different cities, including Dublin, Milton Keynes, London, Glasgow, and now Copenhagen. Moving so often has strongly shaped both my personal life and my creative work.
Most of my drawings are a direct consequence of my everyday life, wherever I am. I see them as a kind of visual diary — capturing the houses and flats I’ve lived in, friends hanging out, and all sorts of domestic scenes. Through these everyday moments, I explore familiarity, intimacy, and how spaces become personal over time.
What does a typical day look like for you? Are you sketching or drawing every day? Are you often working on many pieces at once or does each drawing hold your entire focus from inception to completion?
A few years ago, I enjoyed working late into the night, but now I prefer waking up quite early in the morning, making a coffee, and starting to draw. Those first hours of the day are very productive for me — my mind feels clearer, and I can better evaluate the work I did the previous day.
I sketch every day as part of a routine. I believe that things happen because you’re working on them rather than just thinking about them. Drawing regularly keeps ideas moving and allows unexpected results to appear naturally.
I usually work on many pieces at the same time. I don’t really believe in the idea of the perfect single work; instead, I prefer to play around with different drawings simultaneously. That way, I feel freer, make fewer creative blocks, and allow myself to make as many mistakes as possible — which is often where the most interesting things come from.
Do you work primarily from life, memory, imagination, reference - or a combination of sources?
When I was a student in Barcelona, I worked almost exclusively from life. At the university, we drew from models, and every afternoon I also attended a very traditional drawing Centre called Cercle Artistic de Sant Lluc, where we could draw from live model poses from 6 pm to 9 pm every day except Sundays. At that stage, it was essential for me to gain strong fundamentals and to understand drawing through observation truly.
Little by little, I began to work more from memory in my studio. I realised that drawing only from direct observation could become limiting when it came to developing my own voice. Memory allowed me to filter reality, keeping what felt essential and personal rather than purely accurate.
Today, my process is a mix of observation, memory, and imagination. I occasionally use photographs, but I try not to rely on them too much. I’ve seen many artists become overly dependent on photos, and in a way the image can start to limit interpretation rather than expand it.
How did you find your signature style? Was it quite instinctive from the beginning or did it emerge through a process of experimentation and discovery?
From the very beginning, I tended to do things in my own way. As a student, I sometimes had challenges with certain teachers, especially in drawing subjects that required a high level of accuracy, such as anatomy or landscape drawing. My instinct was often to exaggerate shapes and perspectives, so I had to consciously control that impulse in order to meet academic requirements and pass those courses. In that sense, my approach was quite instinctive from early on.
After finishing my degree, my signature style developed more consciously through experimentation in my studio. I focused on enjoying the process, playing with ideas, and allowing myself freedom rather than aiming for immediate refinement. I studied other artists, but instead of prioritising quality at first, I was more interested in quantity — producing a lot of work to see what would emerge over time. Working with flexible, replaceable materials like paper made that process easier, as it encouraged risk-taking and reduced the fear of making mistakes.
What draws you to portraying your subjects in intimate everyday settings, such as messy bedrooms? What do these scenes allow you to explore about your subjects that a traditional still life set up might not?
From the very beginning, I was drawn to the human figure and to the emotional intensity you can concentrate within it. I was always more interested in people than in objects. Interestingly, to be admitted to the Faculty of Fine Arts at the time, we had to pass a four-hour drawing exam based on a very complex, classical still life — charcoal, heavy focus on shadows, volume, and accuracy.
To prepare for that exam, I spent an entire summer at an old academy in Barcelona called Escola Leonardo da Vinci, where a wonderful elderly teacher taught me the fundamentals of observation. I produced dozens of drawings just to be able to pass that still-life test. I learned a great deal from that experience, but it also left me slightly tired of traditional still life, and afterwards I naturally shifted my focus back to the human figure and modern artists.
Intimate and domestic scenes came very naturally to me. I’m interested in the simplicity of everyday life at home — the ordinary objects that surround you, friends hanging out, laundry baskets, a coffee maker. These settings allow emotions and relationships to appear quietly, without being staged. In a way, there’s a contradiction in my work: I’ve found a lot of inspiration through living in many different cities, yet what I enjoy drawing most is the private, familiar world of home. Those intimate spaces allow me to explore vulnerability, closeness, and lived experience in a way a traditional still-life setup never could.
Your work is incredibly vibrant, lively and frenetic, is that a result of your process or a conscious stylistic choice? Do you work quickly or take a long time over each piece?
In my work, I rarely make fully conscious decisions — most things emerge in an unconscious way through practice and repetition. I think visual artists are deeply intuitive; often we don’t completely understand why we do certain things. It’s usually only later, after producing a significant body of work and gaining some distance in time, that we begin to recognise patterns and understand why the work looks the way it does.
That said, I do think my background has played a role. The Mediterranean light where I grew up has influenced my attraction to vibrant colour, even though for the last fifteen years I’ve been living in much rainier cities. I try to bring intensity into my drawings through vigorous lines at the beginning, which later soften and merge with colour — some lines remain, others disappear.
I work quickly, but individual drawings often stay in progress for weeks. I might spend 20 or 30 minutes on a piece and then switch rapidly to another, or create a different version of the same image. Working in short, intense sessions and constantly moving between drawings helps me maintain energy and spontaneity while allowing the work to develop over time.
There appears to be a lovely painterly process of layering happening in your pencil drawings, how do you decide which elements to emphasise and which to leave ambiguous? How do you know when a piece is ‘done’?
During my university years, and for a few years after graduating, I experimented extensively with abstract acrylic painting. At the time, I remember seeing other students working directly from photographs pinned to the wall and copying them onto canvas. I found that approach quite discouraging and unmotivating, which pushed me in a different direction.
By my second year, I began working with a group of abstract painters, producing large-scale canvases around 200 × 200 cm. Abstract painting taught me the importance of process — layering, memory, and the constant selection of what remains and what disappears. It also taught me how to work with freedom, without the pressure of representation.
Those abstract years have strongly influenced my figurative drawings today. I intuitively emphasise certain elements and let others fade away. I’m interested in ambiguity — when things are present but not fully revealed, allowing space for interpretation.
As for knowing when a piece is finished, it’s largely intuitive. A drawing feels done when adding more no longer contributes to it. Sometimes it’s simply a moment of clarity; other times, it’s fatigue — a sense that the conversation with the piece has ended and it’s time to close that chapter.
Can you tell us about any challenges you encounter in your creative process and how you overcome them?
Most of the challenges I encounter come from creative blocks. Sometimes it feels like I don’t know what to draw or where to place my attention — as if something is missing — and motivation can suddenly disappear. It’s easy in those moments to feel stuck or disconnected from the work.
Over time, I’ve learned that motivation comes and goes, and that you can’t rely on it too much. What really matters is showing up. Even if it’s just sitting at the drawing table and making a few lines here and there, that act of working keeps the process alive.
At the beginning, I was pretty afraid of creative blocks — they felt like reaching the middle of nowhere. Now I understand them as part of the process. The way I overcome them is simply by continuing to draw and move forward, even when I don’t feel like it. Very often, clarity returns through the act of working itself.
Do you have any advice for people wanting to explore their own creativity but unsure where to start?
I would say that enjoying the process is fundamental. You only need to watch kids drawing for half an hour to understand what creativity really is and how it works. Creativity that feels forced usually isn’t true to you — what inspires you generally comes naturally and effortlessly. It’s like surfers riding a twenty-metre wave: they don’t calculate every move, they just flow with it.
The key is to pay attention to the things you naturally repeat — the gestures, subjects, or ways of working that feel instinctive. Those are valuable clues pointing toward the direction your creativity wants to take.
What have been some of your greatest sources of inspiration in your life?
I’ve had many different sources of inspiration throughout my life. As a student, being close to other artists friends was incredibly inspiring — talking about art, debating modern masters like Picasso, Matisse, or Gauguin, and sometimes having heated discussions that would continue over a beer in a pub. There was also a kind of friendly competition about the next painting, which pushed me creatively during those early years.
The years I spent drawing the human figure obsessively at the Cercle Artístic de Sant Lluc in Barcelona were also a huge source of inspiration, as it helped me develop discipline and observation skills.
Later on, inspiration has often come from everyday life — ordinary objects at home, friends hanging out and posing casually. Cinema has also been essential for me. I’ve always admired independent films, because unlike a static image, a movie captures movement, time, and emotion in a concentrated way. Watching a great movie, even with a peculiar or unconventional narrative, often gives me new ideas and the urge to draw something immediately.
Can you tell us about a piece or an achievement you are particularly proud of?
It’s a bit challenging for me to single out one piece or achievement, because I tend to give each drawing the same importance. Of course, some I like more than others, but once a piece is finished, I usually move on quickly. Each work represents a vivid moment in time, like entries in a visual diary, and once that moment passes, it passes — the focus is always on the next step.
For me, the achievement I feel most proud of isn’t a single drawing, but the sense of following my own path, seeing my progression, and gradually finding my own voice. I also take pride in staying humble and recognising that growth is ongoing — that there’s always more to explore and improve.
Finally, what are you most excited to be working on this year?
This year, I’m really excited about returning to painting with acrylic on paper. Drawing has always been my way of adapting to a very mobile life — moving between flats and cities over the years. Its simplicity and immediacy make it easy to keep working: all you need is pencils and paper, and the process is spontaneous in a way that painting sometimes isn’t.
Painting, on the other hand, requires a different mindset. It demands more energy, preparation, and a certain theatricality, while the attitude is similar to drawing. But the results can be incredibly rewarding, and that’s what excites me about this return to acrylics.
I’m also thrilled about participating in several galleries this year, including The Biscuit Factory in Newcastle, Liza’s Gallery in Denmark, and, for the first time, sending two drawings to Anita Rogers Gallery in New York. These opportunities are inspiring and motivating, and they make me even more excited to explore new directions in my work.
Article here
https://www.thebiscuitfactory.com/blogs/news/meet-alex-pascual
Anita Rogers Gallery, New York.
I am presenting two drawings at the Anita Rogers Gallery in New York: "Cakes in Copenhagen" and "Hanging clothes in Christianshavn." I would like to thank Anita Rogers, gallery owner, and Elizabeth Thompson, gallery director, for the invitation to participate.
Young Collectors’ Group Exhibition, December 4 – 13, 2025
The exhibition is designed to introduce visitors to emerging artists, guide new collectors in reassessing how they build their collections, and provide practical resources for navigating the contemporary art market.
For me, participating in this show in New York City is especially exciting. In 2016, I began a personal journey focused on small-scale drawings. It all started during the long nights after work at 62 Larch Road in Cricklewood, London, where I managed to rent an en-suite room with a kitchenette and turn it into my studio. Since then, I have continued this exploration in various cities and different apartments where I have lived. The purpose of these drawings was to capture domestic moments and everyday scenes through the simplicity and humility of my pencil drawings—something I could do spontaneously and carry in a simple folder. I never imagined that these drawings would take me this far. Thank you all for supporting me on my way.
Showing seven drawings at The Biscuit Factory in Newcastle
I am Happy to return to the Biscuit Factory in Newcastle, showing seven figurative drawings I have made recently in Copenhagen. My drawing process generally starts with quick sketches I do during life drawing sessions. Most of these drawings go nowhere, but some grab my attention, and I work later in my studio. It is in that phase when the original pencil lines combine with colour and also new lines that define new intentions. I understand the drawing process as something dynamic where things move until they stay. Working from both observation and memory helps me to create something more personal and illusory. The result is seven female drawings in which the characters inhabit domestic spaces, often appearing disconnected or evading reality.
The Biscuit Factory, Newcastle
Open Daily 10 - 5 | Free Admission | Free parking | Ramp and lift access | 5 minutes from Newcastle city centre | Cafe and rooftop terrace
THE AFFORDABLE ART ADVENTURE. Liza’s Gallery, Denmark
I am delighted to participate in the Affordable Art Exhibition at Liza’s Gallery in the beautiful island of Møn, Denmark. This group show will run from November 8th to December 22nd, featuring small-format works at accessible prices to make art available to everyone.
Working with the 17.5x12 cm format was a challenge for me, as my expressive drawing style typically requires more space. After a few frustrating attempts, I changed my approach: I started sketching on larger sheets and then carefully selected and cut out sections to fit the required size. This process of choosing which details to keep became unexpectedly rewarding, allowing me to see my work from a new perspective.
All of these drawings originated from a single life-drawing session, where I captured a variety of poses and later refined and completed them at home.
LIZA'S GALLERY
4780 Stege - Møn, Denmark Tel: + 45 40 74 71 22
info@lizasgallery.com
Life Drawing
During my time as a student at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Barcelona, Life Drawing was the subject I enjoyed the most. I was fascinated by the complexity of the human body—its rhythms, anatomy, proportions, and the emotional aspects.
After my university classes, I would often visit the old Cercle Artístic de Sant Lluc, a historical life drawing centre in the heart of the city. I spent many afternoons there, drawing poses that lasted 3, 5, and 8 minutes from 6:30 PM to 9:30 PM. The centre also had a café where we could take breaks and engage in passionate discussions about art with fellow students and models, who were often artists themselves.
I have great memories of those years in the 90s, when communication relied on face-to-face interaction without the influence of new technology. After leaving Barcelona and living in various cities like Dublin, London, Glasgow, and Copenhagen, my passion for life drawing has remained strong. Over time, I moved away from a strictly anatomical and analytical approach and began to focus on the emotional aspects of each pose, exaggerating features that intuitively convey more feelings.
The Poetry of Everything Exhibition, Denmark
Collective Exhibition at Liza’s Gallery in Møn, Denmark. June-August 2025
Roar Kjærnstad, Ina Christensen, Liza Krügermeier and Alex Pascual
Everyone is warmly welcome
LIZA'S GALLERY
4780 Stege - Møn, Denmark Tel: + 45 40 74 71 22
info@lizasgallery.com
Titan Contemporary Publishing, New Jersey, US
Alex Pascual is a figurative and interior draftsman working with color pencils who has exhibited in London, Newcastle, Berlin, and Kettinge, Denmark. Notable exhibitions include venues such as the Embassy of Brazil, Gallery Heike Arndt in Berlin, and Gallery Heike Arndt in Denmark. Alex has been featured with an article in Creative Boom magazine and he has been nominated for the Trinity Buoy Drawing Prize twice.
These color pencil renderings tend to depict women in isolated and enclosed interior spaces. Alex’s interiors and figures are highly distorted as if the image were pinched from a corner, containing elastic and angular curvature and focal points. His colors are often muted and toned down followed by strategic spaces filled in with white and subjects outlined with black lines. The women contained in the compositions convey body language which evoke melancholiness, sadness, despair, mourning, and perhaps even trauma. Such body language includes curling up in a ball on the bed, placing their heads down, or closing of the eyes.
Inspired by great 19th century masters such as Pierre Bonnard and Éduard Vuillard, Alex applies his own personal interpretation of how figures interact with their environments. Wearing contemporary attire with modernistic interiors , the women in Alex’s drawings are a reflection of current times. From depictions of skinny jeans hanging in a closet to lingerie as well as Adidas slippers and shoes placed on the floor, the interiors remind us of their contemporary inclinations and references. These sketchy and expressive interiors and women contain a variation of color derived from the imagination and design elements rather than of observation. Alex’s subjects contain a smooth blend of pale hues followed by thin irregular outlines of black indicating a separation of form. The play on perspective remains quite interesting with rooms and beds appearing to distort in ways as if to follow the angular limbs of the figures or to enhance the composition. Through stretching and weaving, the planes are guided towards angles which remain flat as well as directed towards our attention.
Sleeping on a Striped Blanket (pictured above) remains one of Alex’s most distorted figurative renderings. The woman, with her comfortable home attire, lays on a bed in a stiff position, however due to the angle of the bed she appears as if standing at an angle. Her cool tan, bright red cheeks, and bright red hair indicates she spends much of her time outdoors, whether at the park or the shore. She places her hands towards the stomach as if she were in the early months of pregnancy or expressing a mood of discomfort. The figure rests peacefully despite her hand gestures as the erratic bed follows the angular proclivity of her form.
Alex Pascual’s drawings are deeply expressive gestures in figurative language in regards to expressing sorrow and pain. Instead of depicting darkness, he chooses subdued, pale colorful tones to reflect these moody works along with spaces which reflect hallucinogenic, elongated visual interferences. With a sense of poetry and a reflection of everyday life, he chooses to express beauty and psychology in the forms of delicate, beautiful women interacting with enclosed interiors. Through isolating body language and sharp, penetrating perspective, Alex balances out his roughly sketched subjects with a soft color palette reflecting a balance in subtlety and sensitivity to light.
https://www.titancontemporary.net/single-post/alex-pascual
Creative Boom Article, UK
Alex Pascual's distorted drawings are a diary of the beauty in everyday life
Originally from Spain, where he studied illustration at the University of Barcelona, Alex moved to the UK in 2011. Living in London before heading up to Glasgow has profoundly impacted Alex's art style, but the humble act of making marks with a pencil is a through line that ties all these locations together.
"Drawing is a fundamental part of my practice," Alex tells Creative Boom. "It's a very flexible medium. You don't need too much preparation to start. You can draw while sitting on the couch, travelling on the train, or cooking in the kitchen. You can draw with an ordinary pencil and a piece of paper.
"Drawing is simple because you put one line after the other, but at the same time can become very complex. Also, drawing is the oldest medium; humans probably started drawing before speaking."
Alex's interest in drawing began with sketching everyday things like objects, interiors and friends. It's a habit which has clearly stuck with him, as now his drawings document the bedrooms, kitchens, and sleeping friends that populate his life. "There is beauty in those small things," he adds. "Working with my everyday is a way to search for beauty in those domestic and ordinary things."
Inspired by the paintings of Pierre Bonnard and Éduard Vuillard, both of whom depicted domestic interiors and intimate spaces, Alex takes a similar approach when creating his drawings. Just as they transformed supposedly redundant elements like rugs or wallpaper patterns into central motifs, so too does Alex unearth the hidden aesthetic qualities of objects constantly in front of him, whether a bottle of Fairy liquid or an overflowing laundry basket.
"Friends or people close to me are part of my everyday life and help to give scenes something more," Alez adds. "In addition to this, I have moved from many different cities and houses in the last twelve years. Drawing some of those moments has been like a personal diary.
"Every drawing I have made recalls something I have lived, and I love it when one of those drawings flies away and hangs in another person's house. Then that drawing becomes part of someone else's everyday life."
When it comes to the abstractions in Alex's drawings, these appear to be the perfect middle ground between drawing without reference and copying from reality, both of which present their own problems. "The challenge was how to use and transform reality into my own language," he explains.
According to Alex, distorting the everyday involves paying close attention to all the little details that come to you effortlessly. "All those little gestures and repetitions that continually appear in your drawings; those are indicators, clues you must follow," he reveals.
"In my case, there was a natural tendency for deforming and distorting things. The origin of that distortion came from wanting to highlight and exaggerate parts that instinctively seemed attractive or more interesting to me. Exaggerating also refers to emotions that you keep and let go of."
He adds: "The first five to ten minutes of each drawing create the direction. This is a time for speculation. Lines move fast from one side to the other. The rest of the drawing elements adapt to that first guidance. Breaking perspectives also allows me to escape from the conventionality of a single point of view."
As for his use of colour, Alex looks to modernists like Gauguin and Van Gogh. "You can identify their paintings from a mile away." However, he also finds inspiration in the exquisite pencil drawings of Klimt and Schiele, as their mastery elevated their simple sketches into works of art.
"When I start a drawing, I begin with intensive lines that define my intentions," says Alex. "Those lines are playful, sensitive and crude at the same time. The colour quickly appears mixed with the pencil lines and sometimes covers them. Adding colour and keep drawing is something that happens simultaneously. Colour selection is intuitive. There is no premeditated plan. Using vivid colours helps me to create my particular narrative."
Colour was also something that Alex integrated naturally when living and working in Barcelona. "The sun is up there constantly and influences your eye perception," he says. "But also, hot weather can affect your focus and concentration."
There's no fear of burning up in the comparatively cooler Glasgow, which has surprising benefits. "Living in the UK gave me the focus I needed; you tend to spend more time at home," Alex concludes. "It feels like hours are longer. Honestly, I love rainy days for drawing.
"Looking back, I consider the six years I spent working in the studio I rented in north London as crucial for my development. My drawings started changing, and I felt so comfortable with my style. I began to work with small formats, putting in more energy and being more productive. My everyday started merging with Mediterranean memories."
Daily Life Puzzles
I am happy to have signed a Licensing Agreement with the German Publisher HEYE-Athesia Kalenderverlag to produce a Daily Life Collection featuring two puzzles based on my drawings.
"Girl by the river" and "Laundry day in North London".
You can buy them here
Thank you :)
Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2023
The Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize is the UK's premier award for contemporary drawing. I am delighted to have been selected once again, as this competition is always challenging due to the high volume of entries each year.
In 2021, I submitted "Staircase in North London," and in 2023, I presented "Messy Kitchen in Glasgow." Both of these works are domestic drawings. While I have moved on from those houses, the drawings remain like a diary of my experiences.
The exhibition for the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2023 will be launched at Trinity Buoy Wharf in London on September 27, 2023, and will then tour various venues across the UK.
Showing six drawings at The Biscuit Factory in Newcastle
Between 2020 and 2022, I created numerous drawings spanning Bethnal Green in East London and Cricklewood in North London. It was a very prolific time. Six of those drawings are exhibited at The Biscuit Factory in Newcastle.
The Biscuit Factory is the UK’s largest independent contemporary art, craft, and design gallery, located in the heart of Newcastle’s cultural quarter. Housed in a former Victorian warehouse, the beautiful gallery spaces are spread over two floors and display a range of contemporary fine art, sculpture, original prints, jewellery, quality craftsmanship, and design-led homewares.
Open Daily 10 - 5 | Free Admission | Free parking | Ramp and lift access | 5 minutes from Newcastle city centre | Cafe and rooftop terrace