Pablo Llana

Pablo Llana constructs visually seductive still lifes with fast-food waste: shiny wrappers encapsulated in resin that simulate food bathed in almost advertising-like light. However, the dark background that surrounds them alludes to a persistent ignorance: the lack of awareness about the real effects of ultra-processed consumption. His work is a direct critique of the desire mechanisms of visual capitalism. By using the system's own remains, Llana transforms waste into language and denunciation, revealing that beneath the promise of pleasure lies a culture of excess and emptiness.

9 works in the series

"National Diet" is a series of wall sculptures that takes fast-food wrappers as its starting point to construct visual landscapes that portray, with critical irony, the food identity of contemporary societies. Through the recycling of these wastes, Pablo Llana creates large-format compositions where the color palette is determined by the graphic codes of major global chains (McDonald's, KFC, Burger King, etc.). Each piece functions as an archaeology of the present: a map of what we consume, discard, and end up normalizing. In these works, the texture of recycled materials coexists with visual patterns reminiscent of flags, shields, or cartographies, reinforcing the idea that consumer culture has replaced—or contaminated—traditional forms of collective identity.

6 works in the series

"Soft Power" is a series focused on the massive use of stickers, labels, and adhesives from sugary drinks (Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Fanta, etc.) as a symbol of the cultural penetration of major brands into the daily fabric of millions of people. Llana collects these materials through a systematic process of gathering and archiving, and uses them to create compositions that explore how corporate power infiltrates affective and collective imaginaries. The series plays with pop aesthetics, but from a political critique. The title alludes to the geopolitical concept of "soft power," that is, the ability of brands—and by extension, the countries of origin—to influence without resorting to force, shaping tastes, habits, and values. The works can take the form of mosaics, portraits, mandalas, or even redesigned heraldic shields with these labels as a critique of the new symbolic order.

3 works in the series