ESPLÚS, 1947 Imma Pueyo
Through the observation and analysis of urban forms, architectural structures, the arrangement of spaces and their functions, Pueyo presents the metropolis as a space for reflection.
Her painting simplifies forms, alters perspectives, intensifies colours and transforms geometry into expression, but above all, it proposes a different way of looking at everyday life.
BURS,URBS. The City Transformed by the Gaze
by Xavier Figueras i Nogués. Corresponding Member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Sant Jordi
Imma Pueyo, art historian, art critic and visual artist, has developed an intense and multifaceted career in the fields of art and culture. Painting is one of the central pillars of her creative practice, and her work is the result of an ongoing process of inquiry in which she studies, reflects and experiments, developing her own distinctive perspective on the contemporary world.
With the exhibition BURS, URBS, Pueyo continues this artistic journey, turning her attention to the urban landscape. The exhibition’s very title contains one of the project’s key conceptual ideas: BURS is formed by rearranging the same letters as URBS, the Latin word for city. This formal displacement of the word also suggests a transformation in the way we understand and perceive the urban environment: the city is not a fixed reality, but one that changes over time and through the gaze of those who observe it. Thus, between URBS and BURS, between what the city is and what it becomes when seen through another’s gaze, a space for reflection emerges that runs throughout the exhibition.
Through the observation and analysis of urban forms, architectural structures, the arrangement of spaces and their functions, Pueyo presents the metropolis as a space for reflection: a dense, complex, fragmented and constantly changing urban organism, in which the city is constructed through the superimposition of volumes that create visual rhythms and balances.
The geometric forms of buildings combine with freer shapes, generating a tension between order and spontaneity. A flexible perspective allows the urban space to be viewed both panoramically and in fragments. Drawing defines the architecture through essential lines, planes and contours. In this process, colour plays a fundamental role: reds and oranges bring energy, intensity and vitality, while blues and whites introduce depth, atmosphere and silence.
Each element contributes to a visual construction that does not seek to reproduce the city faithfully, but rather to reinterpret it and transform it into a pictorial experience. Tonal contrasts create a sense of relief and atmosphere, while the technique combines transparency, overlapping layers and visible brushstrokes, preserving a sense of spontaneity. Textures, in turn, lend materiality to the buildings and enrich the painted surface.
The coincidence of this exhibition with the events marking Barcelona World Capital of Architecture 2026 lends particular significance to the BURS, URBS project. In this context, Imma Pueyo’s painting establishes a suggestive dialogue with the cultural reflection on architecture and the city fostered by this international event. While architecture physically constructs the spaces we inhabit, Pueyo’s painting reconstructs them emotionally, visually and symbolically, through perception, memory and experience.
Her painting simplifies forms, alters perspectives, intensifies colours and transforms geometry into expression, but above all, it proposes a different way of looking at everyday life. In this sense, BURS, URBS refers not only to the city as represented, but also to the city transformed by the gaze and by the passage of time: a reality that is reordered, fragmented and imbued with new meanings depending on who observes it and from what vantage point.
Imma Pueyo thus invites us to discover that, beyond its built reality, architecture can also become colour, matter, light, emotion and art.
