Spain is a land where faith and death walk hand in hand, where devotion is not only believed but endured. In its rituals, in its prayers, in the faces of those who live between silence and ceremony, there is a dialogue between longing and loss. This series is an exploration of that delicate space, of the weight of tradition, of the stories that persist in unspoken gazes, of the way in which time is carved in the human face. Spain breathes in rituals—archaic, fervent, and unyielding. A land where faith is not merely believed but endured, where death and devotion waltz in an eternal embrace. This project is a quiet meditation on that fragile space between longing and loss, between the aching melancholy of existence and the feverish desire to transcend it. At the heart of this work are faces—unforgettable, unrelenting. Strangers, yet deeply familiar. Their eyes, heavy with stories, meet mine, and through them, I see entire lifetimes unfold. I have spent hours, days, years with them. They have given me their voices, their silences. And now, they look beyond the frame, watching the viewer as if whispering a truth only they know. These are faces that will never leave me.

AMADOR RABAL, 2009

I have always been drawn to the margins of the ordinary, to those quiet moments where life brushes against something deeper, something eternal. In the cemetery, Amador Rabal moves among crosses and fading flowers, polishing golden letters, tending to names that no longer speak. He works the earth with the grace of a gardener, his hands steady, his presence reverent. He sits in silence, a cigarette resting between his fingers. The smoke curls from his lips like an exhalation of the soul, rising, disappearing. We both understand—this is where we are born, and if fate allows, this is where we will return. And isn’t sleep itself a rehearsal for death? Memento mori.

INHABITED SILENCE, 2008

Sunday after Sunday, the elderly nuns through dimly lit corridors, their whispered prayers merging with the echo of their footsteps. The air was thick with devotion, a hush so profound it seemed to have weight. Soft habits brushed against stone floors, candlelight flickered against timeworn faces. They lifted their eyes toward something unseen, their souls laid bare in the stillness. It was not the silence of emptiness but of presence—an absence so full, it spoke louder than words.

MATADOR, 1996

From whispered prayers in the chapel to the golden dust of the arena, a matador walks the thin line between grace and mortality. He carries the Virgin’s image sewn into the lining of his hat, a talisman against the beast that waits. The bull. The man. The gleam of sequins in the sun. The dance of fate measured to the rhythm of the pasodoble. It is the deep Spain immersed in this ancestral ritual of the fight for life and death is particularly closely linked to religion here. Is a liturgy of death, beauty and eroticism.