Toy lovers | Judas Arrieta

Judas Arrieta (Hondarribia, 1971) is a contemporary artist whose practice spans painting, drawing, murals, inflatable sculpture, video, and installation. His imagery draws from manga and anime, Asian popular culture, and a European sensibility towards the contemporary, with which he redefines the boundaries between "high" and "low" culture. He studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of the Basque Country (1990–95) and completed an Erasmus exchange at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Since the mid-2000s, he has maintained a close relationship with China: in 2006 he founded MA Studio in Beijing, an artistic residency and exhibition space active until 2013, which hosted over thirty artists and programmed more than twenty-five exhibitions; in 2009, together with the Basque Government, he promoted the program “Goazen Txinara / ¡Vamos a China!”. His work has been shown in Europe and Asia—including Spain, the United States, Finland, Japan, Korea, and China—and is often displayed in formats designed for public experience: murals, inflatable sculptures, and object-pieces that activate play and humor as an entry point.