Carlos Aires is an internationally acclaimed multidisciplinary Spanish artist, known worldwide for his critical and satirical approach to the icons, traditions, objects, and symbols of 20th- and 21st-century popular culture and music. His work exemplifies a persistent investigation into power, pop culture, mortality, and the darker, more unsettling facets of contemporary existence. Across several series — US, I Only Have Eyes for You, Lessons of Darkness, and Reflections — Aires has made the UVI-printed gilded metal surface a recurring visual and conceptual motif. These shimmering surfaces unfold as both collages and tableaux, in which the artist extracts the iconic figures and emblems of popular culture from their original contexts and reassembles them into new, often dissonant constellations. The radiant, almost sacred gold ground evokes the aesthetics of power, opulence, and glory, while beneath its surface emerge motifs of mortality, violence, and cultural decadence. Aires frequently engages with the cultural resonance and symbolism of his chosen materials and supports — in earlier works, he has employed money, vinyl, and even the blackest black paint as expressive and conceptual elements.

Carlos Aires graduated from the University of Granada, Spain in 1997. Later he studied at Fontys Academy (Tilburg), HISK (Antwerp) and Ohio State University (USA). He was honored with prestigious grants and awards: he received the AICA Spain Prize this year, the Fullbright Fellowship several times,  Young Belgian Artist Award and Generación Award as well. He has participated in numerous exhibitions at national and international institutions, such as MACAM Lisbon, Caja Granada Fundación, CAC Malaga, MACBA, Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, USA, Imperial Belvedere Palace Vienna, MUSAC, 5th Thessaloniki Biennale. His works can be found in significant public collections: MACBA, Fondation Francès, ARTER (Turkey), CAC (Spain), Fondazione Benetton (Italy), Space Collection, BPS22 (Belgium), Ministry of Culture of Spain, Progress Art (Saudi Arabia), National Bank of Belgium, 21c Museum (USA), MAK (Austria) among others.