My residency at Tablas de Daimiel National Park was twelve days of studio time inside one of Europe’s treasured wetlands. The program, Arte y Naturaleza, links contemporary painting to landscape, biodiversity, and cultural heritage at the park. It is backed by the Junta de Castilla-La Mancha and tied to the international tARTget Prize.

I came to test whether Structural Omission could hold at a site that reads abundant on the surface while remaining, in hydrology, time depth, and stewardship, partly beyond what any single visit can know. Every act of seeing is partial. The gaps are there from the start.

I rolled prepared canvas from Seattle, stretched it on site, and worked on a shared Venetian red ground across five paintings. On June 12, a jury awarded me the Grand Prize, Art and Nature Award. The winning work will travel to the tARTget Prize 2026 ceremony at the Ateneo de Madrid on September 18, 2026.

These residency notes document what shifted in the work: anticipation on the flight, studio friction on the ground, and a longer philosophy essay still to come.

Official announcement of the Grand Prize, Art and Nature Award: Grand Prize, Art and Nature Award — Ayuntamiento de Daimiel (Spanish).