IBIZA.- In celebration of its 10th anniversary, Fundación La Nave Salinas, a leading institution dedicated to showcasing contemporary art, is pleased to announce Picnic, a show of recent large-format paintings by artist Pedro Pedro (b. 1986). Opening on Saturday, August 16, 2025, the exhibition will be held at the foundation’s permanent space in Ibiza and will remain on view through October 31, 2025. This is the artist’s most ambitious body of work to date and was created specifically for exhibition at the foundation’s historic stone building, overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.

Art-historical echoes run through Pedro Pedro’s paintings. Like 17th Century vanitas masters, Pedro stages luxuriant bouquets, extravagant food platters, jewelry, timepieces, and other emblems of passing time. Yet where traditional vanitas masters urged viewers to “remember you must die” (memento mori), Pedro flips the script to “remember to live” (memento vivere). Each lemon slice, half-eaten tart, or toppled wine glass is not a warning about mortality, but a luminous reminder to inhabit the present with curiosity, joy and delight.

"Pedro Pedro's work immediately transports you to a world of heightened senses and joyful bliss," says Lio Malca, founder of Fundación La Nave Salinas. "His ability to transform the everyday into something so utterly delectable makes Picnic an ideal next chapter in our summer program at La Nave, inviting viewers to delight themselves in his unique vision."

Pedro Pedro began painting at age 20 as a way to pass time while in the hospital for a surgery. There, he discovered the vibrant effect of applying textile paint to unprimed linen, now his favored method. Over the years, he has developed a very unique style, recognizable at a glance, carrying a sophisticated level of technical precision. His subjects are lit with a surreal quality, and are slightly exaggerated in scale and perspective, recalling the bulbous forms of Fernando Botero. His more recent dessert paintings draw an influence from the great Wayne Thiebaud, one of Pedro’s favorite artists.

In Picnic, Pedro stages a sumptuous alfresco feast across fifteen new canvases. Beneath their exuberant surfaces lies a subtle homage to the 1950s, through the depiction of mid‑century furniture and aesthetic, a lens through which Pedro critiques the relentless pace of 2025. In an age defined by nonstop notifications and doom‑scroll headlines, Pedro invites us back to a time when people savored the present moment.

“Pedro’s paintings embody what art ought to achieve,” notes Isaac Malca, Director of Fundación La Nave Salinas. “They captivate at first glance, and on closer inspection offer a thoughtful commentary on the world and time we inhabit.”

Pedro Pedro lives and works in Los Angeles, California. His work has been exhibited widely throughout the United States and abroad, and is held in esteemed public and private collections, including that of philanthropist Jorge M. Pérez, founder of the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM).

Artist Statement

Picnics have always struck me as more than casual outdoor meals; they are quiet rituals that weave together food, conversation, and a temporary sense of freedom. In Picnic, I turn to this familiar gathering as both subject and framework, asking how a moment of shared leisure might give shape to our collective need for relief from daily pressures.

Although the word picnic originates in French, the act itself slips easily across borders and eras. We all understand the simple pleasure of spreading a blanket, passing bread, and letting time loosen its grip. I draw on that universality by painting objects anyone might recognize: glossy cherries, layered cakes, torn baguettes, half-empty wine bottles. These motifs function as coordinates in a shared memory map, allowing each viewer to locate a personal point of entry, as well as historical symbols in my personal life.

Color is my primary tool for amplifying that connection. Using a deliberately saturated palette, I push ordinary objects toward the edge of the surreal: strawberries glow hotter than reality would allow, glass catches light that seems both natural and impossible. This heightened tonality isn’t only about visual impact; it’s a way to suggest that the picnic is already halfway to dream, a place where expectation tilts into imagination.

Each of the fifteen paintings also includes traces of human presence—a jacket slumped on the grass, sunglasses knocked askew, lipstick on a drained cocktail glass. These fragments signal activity just out of frame, inviting the viewer to step into the scene and complete the narrative. At the same time, the arrangement freezes these clues in an eternal midday, asking us to linger in a moment that resists closure.

Ultimately, I see the picnic as a compact utopia: an interval where pleasure is foregrounded, consequences are deferred, and community briefly reasserts itself against the weight of routine. By stretching that instant across a canvas, I hope to create a space where viewers can rest for a while, consider what it means to pause together, and perhaps carry a trace of that suspended ease back into everyday life. — Pedro Pedro