Interview with MAESTRO

Maestro, LOADING (Statue of Liberty), 2025

By WM May 6, 2025

In his recent solo show in Washington, DC, Spanish-born artist MAESTRO blurred the line between architecture and fine art with stark, pixelated drawings that never fully resolved. LOADING explored the tension between anticipation and access in a digital world, turning technological frustration into meditative form. Whitehot Magazine spoke with the artist about how a glitch became a language—and how his background in architecture shaped his practice.

WM: Can you walk us through your transition from architecture to fine art? How did that journey begin and where did it diverge?

MAESTRO: I think I pursued both architecture and art because of my parents. I have vivid memories of walking through my home city of Valencia with my mother, staring up at the buildings. She is handicapped, so we always moved slowly together—which gave me time to really study and admire the structures around me, to see things I might have otherwise missed.

My father was an artist, though he always maintained another career alongside it. Through him, I was drawn to creative pursuits early on, and architecture felt like a clear, professional path that could also engage that creative part of me. I ended up falling in love with it—not just architecture, but design in general.

Architecture has always been a form of artistic expression for me. I value its structural logic and enjoy shaping projects to suit their environments, but I also found myself chafing against the limitations imposed by regulations and external constraints. I don’t see my journey as abandoning architecture, but rather as expanding beyond it. My art practice allows me to bring that same structural knowledge and appreciation for form and beauty to other mediums. It’s been more of an evolution than a clean break.

Maestro, LOADING (American Gothic), 2025

What was the moment when you realized that pixelation—a digital frustration—could become your artistic language?

MAESTRO: When I first immigrated to the US, I had a cheap phone plan that made it nearly impossible to view images clearly—they just refused to “load” on my screen. At first, that frozen moment of anticipation was deeply frustrating. It represented the stress of being delayed or denied access, especially during a time when I was trying to build a life in a new country.

But over time, that frustration gave way to fascination. As an architect, I was already used to producing digital renderings of imagined spaces—visual futures made of pixels. I started to see those pixels as atoms, fundamental units of meaning. I became obsessed with drawing them.

Maestro, LOADING (Pearl Earring), 2025

What inspired the concept of LOADING, and what does that perpetual digital pause represent for you personally?

MAESTRO: The LOADING series really emerged from that initial experience of technological frustration. I began creating drawings that showed subjects caught in a perpetual state of “loading,” and was struck by how strong the emotional effect remained—even when the image was rendered in pen and paper. That sense of delay, of anticipation, still lingered.

I was also interested in testing the boundaries of recognition. How many pixels do we really need in order to identify something? Especially those images that shape our cultural memory? That question led me to play with abstraction and perspective, and the series grew naturally from there.

Maestro, LOADING (Steamboat Willie), 2025

How do you hope viewers interpret or emotionally respond to the “incomplete” nature of your subjects?

MAESTRO: We’ve grown used to instant access and high-definition images. I love technology and rely on it every day—but I think our relationship with it is more fragile than we tend to acknowledge. Having unlimited data isn’t the same as having unlimited potential, and the culture of instant gratification can dull our sense of patience and curiosity.

Through my work, I hope to playfully provoke a bit of that old frustration—to slow viewers down, and invite them to reflect. We miss things when we move too fast. Sometimes the best things require a pause.

What’s next? Do you have new ideas brewing that build off this pixelated language, or are you heading in a new direction entirely?

MAESTRO: My future is definitely still pixelated. I’m excited to experiment with sculpture and explore the LOADING concept through new mediums—like stone mosaic or oil paint.

That said, the minimalism of black-and-white, pen-on-paper drawings continues to be my core language. I admire artists who push a concept and a medium as far as they can go. I don’t think I’ve reached that point yet—and that’s exciting. WM