The Royal Palace

Ballester’s search for the poetics of empty space has led to the series Espacios ocultos (Hidden spaces), comprising reinterpretations of masterpieces from art history, which he reworks by digitally altering photographic images of these earlier paintings to produce disquieting absences. Works such as Diego Velázquez’s Las Meninas (1656) have allowed Ballester to revisit paintings of previous centuries, to approach them without having to renounce his own period in history. Velázquez’s most celebrated work of art, Las Meninas is a complex composition, constructed with admirable skill in the use of perspective, the depiction of light, and the representation of atmosphere. The paintings on the wall convey nobility and encapsulate knowledge of the best European artists of the 17th century; however, the depth of field in the painting, which limits the focus to the central figures and objects in the foreground and leaves the background blurred, anticipates the techniques of photography.