Fontela’s work is the result of a carefully studied dialogue with images that interest him or that have an impact on his surrounding environs. His analytical gaze and his engagement with the painterly process mark the time which the artist dedicates to each individual theme, relishing in the process until he judges it to be concluded. In all his work there are two large underlying concerns, namely the landscape and his love for painting.

In this series, his obsession with the image of an island or a rock that stands out from the sea is rendered with the enigmatic title: Nowhere Island, which adds a level of conceptual content to the painterly presence. In these canvases, Fontela proposes an unknown geography full of mystery. The relief of the island which stands firm despite the constant tides is shaped by various elements such as rain, wind, and, of course, sea water. As Fontela himself has declared, it is “ultimately a metaphor of the human being faced with his surroundings.”

BBVA Collection owns two works from the series, which could be viewed as a diptych. First of all, there is Nowhere Island I, where we can see the island during daytime which is, as the artist says, “the visible, the categorical, the real, the palpable”; secondly, Nowhere Island II shows a night-time view of the island, which symbolises “the poetic, the mysterious, the magical”. The two sides of the same coin of our existence, both interpreted with gran visual wealth.

This series of striking canvas paintings is of exceptionally high quality.