Toti Cuesta, Watercolor Artist in Madrid
Madrid is much more than the place where I live and paint. It is an inexhaustible source of human stories, beautiful skies and everyday scenes that become the starting point of my watercolors.
Madrid as inspiration
Madrid is the city where I have always lived and the one I know best. I have watched its streets, its neighborhoods and the people who inhabit it change over time. That is why, when I paint Madrid, I do not feel that I am representing a place, but showing the world a part of my own history.
More than a city, it is an experience where tradition and modernity coexist. What fascinates me is what happens inside the city: conversations in a square, people reading on a bench, children playing in a park without knowing they are part of a scene that someone is observing.
The intimate and the monumental
Madrid has a very particular combination between the energy of a great capital and the closeness of a city lived by those who walk through it every day. In a single morning you can find the grandeur of the Royal Palace, the tranquility of a corner of the Retiro and everyday scenes that go unnoticed by most people.
As a watercolor artist, that is exactly what I look for: to move between the foreground of a neighborhood bench and the historic building that appears in the background. Madrid allows me to paint the relationship between people and the city they inhabit.
About Me
I am Toti Cuesta, watercolor artist and portrait artist. I have always lived in Madrid and a great part of my work is born from observing the people who inhabit this city.
For years I walked its streets, parks and squares with my camera, capturing everyday scenes that I later transformed into watercolors: a conversation between friends in the Plaza Mayor, an elderly man on a bench in the Retiro, a family in the rain.
Madrid allows me to paint from the inside, with the knowledge of someone who has watched a city change and still finds stories to tell in it.
Places That Inspire Me
The Retiro Park is one of the places I have photographed most, perhaps because it is a space that all Madrileños consider our own. Also the Plaza Mayor, the Gran Vía and many streets of the historic centre, where different generations coexist and the city shows both its history and its everyday life.
I came across this gentleman several times sitting on the same bench, in front of the Retiro lake. He always arrived with his little bag. Sometimes he would read the newspaper, other times he would watch people go by. When lockdown came and I was able to return to the Retiro, he was no longer there. I painted two pictures of him to remember him, although nobody knows that.
Puerta del Sol at first light
I photographed this scene one early morning at the Puerta del Sol. These women gather every day before heading off to the busiest spots in the city centre. It is a routine that all Madrileños know.
I had seen them so many times that I found it delightful to paint them in a watercolor with their very particular style: flip flops with winter striped socks, floral skirts, colorful headscarves and pigeons all around. It is a scene that repeats itself every day and forms part of the real Madrid, the one that never appears in tourist guides.
Madrid beyond the guidebooks
My watercolors of Madrid do not seek the official portrait of the city. What interests me are the scenes that any Madrileño recognizes instantly, even though we sometimes move so fast that we miss the details, like the cardboard sign that reads: “please, give me something to eat.”
That capacity of Madrid to contain very different lives in the same space is one of the things that appears most in my work and that I find most compelling to paint.
Madrid's grandparents
The grandmothers and grandfathers of Madrid are an essential part of the city. Many of them, every day, rain or shine, pick up their grandchildren, take them home, care for them and accompany them. They raised their own children and continue working to raise the next generation.
This watercolor was born from observing that scene, so often repeated and so little recognized. A grandmother with her umbrella and her bag, while the little girl tells her everything she has done, happy to have her all to herself.
A silent act of love
There is nothing extraordinary about this scene. And yet something stops you: the way the grandmother holds the umbrella tilted towards the little girl so that she stays dry even though she is wearing her hood.
I painted it with the same simplicity with which it repeats itself every day: just a grandmother and her granddaughter, walking in the rain in Madrid.
A Couple Strolling Along Gran Vía
Gran Vía is one of those streets in Madrid that gets more beautiful every day. It may not be grand in size, but it is grand in tradition, in style and in that something unique that defines it. Everyone loves to walk along it: Madrileños, visitors, people who have been crossing it every day for years and people who walk it for the first time without quite knowing where they are going.
This couple was standing in the middle of the street, in the doorway of one of the most well-known shops in the city, absorbed in their phone and oblivious to the movement around them. There is something very particular about that ability to create an intimate space in the middle of one of the busiest streets in Madrid.
I painted them because that scene says something that interests me very much: that Madrid is not just a backdrop. It is the place where people’s stories happen.
Recognitions and Exhibitions
My original watercolors have been part of national and international exhibitions, publications and artistic projects.
Over the years I have had the opportunity to exhibit my work in galleries, museums and spaces dedicated to contemporary art, as well as take part in specialized publications.
Each exhibition is an opportunity to share the work with new people and allow the paintings to establish connections beyond the studio where they were created.
You can find a selection of exhibitions, publications and awards related to my work in the recognitions section.
Discover my Madrid Watercolors
If you would like to know more about my Madrid series, you can explore my Madrid watercolor portraits and my portraits and scenes of everyday city life, or discover the rest of my work in the gallery.