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 specifi cally 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 fl ips 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 eff ect 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 infl uence from the great Wayne Thiebaud, one of Pedro’s favorite artists.
In Picnic, Pedro stages a sumptuous alfresco feast across fi fteen 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 defi ned by nonstop notifi cations 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 fi rst glance, and on closer inspection off er a thoughtful commentary on the world and time we inhabit.”
