Obscura BCN 2025: Shadows Take Center Stage in Europe’s First Dark Art Fair

Obscura BCN 2025, an international fair dedicated exclusively to dark art, is scheduled to take place on November 29 at Sala Andy Warhol, located within Barcelona’s industrial arts complex Nau Bòstik. Organized by Dark Art Gallery, an independent platform focused on showcasing artists working across macabre, esoteric, and symbolically charged visual practices, the event has been confirmed through official statements and social media communications by the organizers.

Titled Obscura BCN 2025, the exhibition positions itself as the first fair of its kind in Europe—a structured and curated gathering that departs from broader alternative markets by focusing solely on the aesthetics of darkness and introspection. Designed to unite artists, collectors, galleries, and scholars, the event intends to provide a space where dark art is no longer treated as a marginal or decorative subgenre, but instead framed within contemporary discourses of fine art, cultural identity, and philosophical expression. Announcements regarding artist pre-selection, contest awards, and accompanying programming have reinforced the fair’s growing visibility within the alternative art scene, with organizers citing strong early interest ahead of its late-November debut.

Curatorial Vision: Ariadna Royo and Ameera Mills

The curatorial leadership behind Obscura BCN 2025 rests with Ariadna Royo Cebrecos and Ameera Mills, co-founders of Dark Art Gallery and the principal figures shaping the event’s intellectual and aesthetic framework. Both curators bring formal academic training and sector-specific experience to the project. Royo, an art historian educated in part through Christie’s educational program, has previously worked as an advisor in the auction and fine arts sectors. Mills, whose background spans arts management and theatrical production, contributes complementary expertise in spatial and experiential design. Together, they position Obscura BCN not as an alternative craft fair, but as a carefully curated art event rooted in art historical research and cultural scholarship.

Their stated objective is to establish a credible, recurring platform for artists who work within the visual lexicon of the dark, the symbolic, and the psychologically layered. In organizing the fair, Royo and Mills deliberately move away from popular categorizations of horror art and instead draw attention to the thematic and technical rigor often overlooked in such work. The fair’s promotional materials and public statements describe their vision as one that honors the intricacies of aesthetic discomfort and the emotional clarity that often emerges from darker subject matter. They have emphasized that dark art, as presented at Obscura BCN, is not defined by shock value or gore, but by its capacity to engage with ideas of mortality, spiritual tension, and symbolic transformation.

Beyond their work with Dark Art Gallery, both curators have been associated with Barcelona’s FotoNostrum, a center for contemporary photographic practice known for experimental and non-commercial programming. This affiliation reinforces their credibility within the broader contemporary art field and situates Obscura BCN within an ecosystem of institutions committed to visual experimentation. Their approach to selection for the fair includes a pre-screening process requiring artists to submit project statements, portfolios, or documentation of their work. This step, according to the organizers, is intended to ensure thematic cohesion and visual integrity across the event’s limited exhibition space. The curators have publicly articulated a desire for the fair to maintain a coherent identity—one where each participating artist contributes to the collective impact of the event while retaining the individual specificity of their work.

Through this curatorial model, Royo and Mills are attempting to define a formal space for dark art within contemporary art discourse. Their vision reflects a balance between community-oriented programming and academic curatorial standards, seeking to elevate the genre beyond subcultural classification while retaining its emotional and symbolic core. In this sense, Obscura BCN 2025 functions not only as an exhibition but as a critical platform through which the legitimacy and complexity of dark art may be articulated and publicly tested.

Featured Artists and Works

Obscura BCN 2025 will bring together a cross-section of international artists whose practices are grounded in themes of decay, mortality, existential inquiry, and occult symbolism. While the final list of participants has yet to be formally published, the curators have confirmed the inclusion of several artists currently represented by Dark Art Gallery, many of whom align with the exhibition’s stated intent to present technically proficient and conceptually rich dark art. These artists work across a spectrum of media, including sculpture, painting, digital manipulation, photography, and object-based design.

Among the most prominently featured is HeavyMetArt, the collaborative project of Spanish artists Ana Susarte and José García. Winners of the gallery’s 2024 competition, the duo has garnered attention for sculptural works that reinterpret classical forms through a viscerally altered lens. Their piece ‘David Bifronte’ presents a bifurcated rendition of Michelangelo’s ‘David,’ suggesting themes of duality and distortion, while ‘Memento Aureum’ explores the aesthetics of anatomical decay gilded in bronze tones. These works, which employ fine art casting and patina techniques, are emblematic of the fair’s broader curatorial emphasis on formality and precision, even when addressing morbid or uncanny subjects.

Other participating artists include Claudio Magrassi of Italy, whose paintings are marked by dense chiaroscuro and historically informed figuration. Magrassi’s work merges classical oil techniques with grotesque iconography, producing figures that evoke religious icon painting destabilized by surreal anatomical fragmentation. Spanish painter Víctor Blake contributes a body of work defined by symbolic imagery rendered in dark, muted palettes. His compositions often include motifs such as hourglasses, skulls, and shadowed landscapes, inviting reflection on time, death, and spiritual transience.

From the field of photography, Italian artist Paolo Sanna is expected to exhibit ethereal portraiture that explores the visual boundary between the material and the spectral. His photographic compositions employ long exposure and minimal digital alteration to achieve a blurred, meditative quality. In contrast, Argentine digital artist Damian Scaglia constructs densely layered scenes from manipulated photographs, often depicting post-human environments and corporeal fragmentation. His work relies on dark tonal structures and narrative composition, aiming to produce immersive visual experiences grounded in personal and collective anxieties.

The fair will also include artists working in wearable and object-based formats. Barcelona-based designer Rosa Negra produces handcrafted jewelry incorporating natural stones, metals, and symbolic motifs drawn from esoteric and mythological sources. Her pieces are constructed to function as both adornment and statement, extending the aesthetic values of dark art into the realm of daily ritual and personal symbolism. Additional exhibitors include installation artists and miniature sculptors whose work addresses solitude, loss, and the psychological effects of urban confinement.

While stylistically diverse, the selected works are unified by their engagement with emotional and conceptual extremes. The fair’s curators have prioritized projects that reflect a clear aesthetic identity and thematic coherence with the event’s framing. This emphasis on curatorial consistency serves to distinguish Obscura BCN from broader illustration or craft markets, aligning it instead with fine art exhibition models that favor depth, continuity, and critical dialogue.

Installation and the Sala Andy Warhol Space

Obscura BCN 2025 will take place within the Sala Andy Warhol, one of the principal halls at Nau Bòstik, an independent cultural space housed in a former industrial complex in Barcelona’s La Sagrera district. The venue, known for hosting alternative exhibitions, performance art, and independent fairs, provides both the architectural neutrality and raw atmosphere that align with the fair’s conceptual framing. With a floor area of approximately 253 square meters and a ceiling height exceeding six meters, the hall offers an open-plan structure with minimal fixed partitions, allowing curators to implement a layout that balances visibility, cohesion, and atmosphere.

The space is defined by its three central support columns, modular lighting infrastructure, and a combination of natural and artificial illumination options. These elements enable a controlled exhibition environment, essential for showcasing artworks that rely heavily on light interplay, material detail, and subtle contrasts. According to architectural documentation from Nau Bòstik, the venue includes a black ceiling lighting grid with dimmable LED fixtures and perimeter supports that can accommodate wall-mounted works or suspended installations. This degree of flexibility is particularly relevant for dark art, where shadow, reflection, and material texture often contribute to the viewer’s interpretive experience.

The fair will be structured around a combination of Premium and Standard stands, strategically distributed to guide foot traffic through a sequence of curated visual experiences. Premium stands will occupy the hall’s central circulation path, allowing high visibility for works that demand frontal engagement or require secure wall mounting, including sculptures and large-format paintings. Standard stands, positioned along the periphery and within defined secondary zones, will accommodate smaller works and emerging artist presentations. Each stand will be provided with basic infrastructure including tables, chairs, and mounting options, although the fair’s curatorial team retains control over final placement and spatial orientation to preserve visual coherence across the exhibition.

Adjacent to the Sala Andy Warhol is a secondary space designated for audiovisual support, informal gatherings, or live programming. While not formally part of the main exhibition floor, this auxiliary room is accessible through the same entrance corridor, providing logistical continuity and serving as a potential venue for artist talks, media screenings, or behind-the-scenes operations. The availability of this space reflects the organizers’ intent to present the fair as both an exhibition and a platform for critical engagement.

Overall, the installation strategy at Obscura BCN 2025 is shaped not only by practical spatial considerations but by a deliberate effort to align form with thematic content. The venue’s industrial character—reinforced by exposed beams, concrete flooring, and subdued acoustics—supports the curators’ goal of creating an immersive yet focused environment. Unlike white-cube galleries that neutralize context, Nau Bòstik’s architectural texture complements the fair’s emphasis on psychological atmosphere, symbolic depth, and the cultural resonance of dark aesthetics.

Dark Art in Context: Themes and Discourse

The curatorial framing of Obscura BCN 2025 reflects a conscious effort to position dark art within a broader intellectual and historical context, distancing it from purely subcultural or entertainment-based interpretations. The organizers—drawing from their academic backgrounds and professional affiliations—treat dark art not as a genre rooted in horror motifs or shock value, but as a constellation of practices that explore existential inquiry, symbolic density, and emotional complexity. In doing so, they align the fair with contemporary movements in fine art that prioritize thematic intentionality and craft-based execution over sensationalism.

Central to this reframing is the assertion that dark art belongs to a lineage that includes vanitas painting, nineteenth-century symbolism, and postwar surrealism. This genealogical approach allows the fair’s curators to draw connections between historical traditions of representing death, decay, and the uncanny, and current practices that revisit those motifs through updated materials, technologies, and psychological frameworks. By incorporating artists who reference both classical techniques and contemporary iconography, Obscura BCN advances an understanding of dark art as a form of cultural reflection—a means through which the instability of modern life is rendered visible.

This perspective resonates with existing scholarly interpretations of dark art as a mode that emphasizes interiority, rupture, and the tension between attraction and repulsion. Art critic Michael Cunliffe, for example, has described the form as one that borrows from horror iconography but diverges through its emphasis on formal rigor and symbolic layering. Similarly, artist James Deeb has argued that dark art achieves its critical potential not when it resorts to grotesque imagery alone, but when it provokes recognition of personal or social anxieties through its visual logic. The works selected for Obscura BCN reflect these tendencies, with participating artists often employing anatomical, spiritual, or mythological references to examine themes such as the body’s fragility, the permanence of loss, and the instability of identity.

The fair’s organizers also seek to establish dark art as a legitimate response to contemporary conditions, noting its relevance to psychological states increasingly shaped by political uncertainty, ecological crisis, and technological alienation. While the curatorial team avoids framing these connections in overtly political terms, their selection of works points to a shared cultural vocabulary in which death, isolation, and spiritual ambiguity become visual metaphors for broader social conditions. In this sense, Obscura BCN does not aim to insulate dark art within aesthetic boundaries but to present it as a lens through which contemporary reality might be interpreted and felt.

Equally important is the fair’s refusal to relegate dark art to a purely decorative or entertainment niche. Instead, the event is framed as a platform for visual discourse, where the affective power of the work is not in opposition to its intellectual weight. The inclusion of artists from diverse geographic and professional backgrounds supports this ambition, reinforcing the idea that dark art is not a stylistic novelty, but a sustained and evolving set of practices that deserve critical attention.

Through this framing, Obscura BCN 2025 asserts itself not only as a showcase for alternative aesthetics, but as a curatorial project that challenges assumptions about what constitutes value, beauty, and relevance in contemporary art. In doing so, it invites both public and institutional audiences to reconsider the place of darkness—not as a marginal fascination, but as a fundamental component of artistic and cultural inquiry.

Complementary Program: Talks, Workshops and Collaborations

In parallel with its exhibition core, Obscura BCN 2025 is expected to present a series of complementary activities designed to expand the fair’s engagement with both artists and audiences. While the full schedule of programming has not been released, preliminary materials from the organizers indicate a focus on talks, roundtable discussions, and workshops, all of which aim to foster critical dialogue and deepen the fair’s cultural impact. These activities are being positioned not as supplemental events, but as integral components of the fair’s mission to establish dark art as a subject of sustained artistic and intellectual inquiry.

According to statements from Dark Art Gallery, the programming will include curated discussions featuring participating artists, curators, and invited professionals working across visual arts, art history, and cultural criticism. These sessions are intended to provide context for the exhibited works while also creating space for dialogue on thematic concerns such as mortality, symbology, ritual, and the shifting boundaries between academic and underground art. The inclusion of these sessions signals an effort to balance the fair’s market-driven functions with educational and discursive objectives.

Workshops are also anticipated, though details remain pending as of the current announcement cycle. Based on the fair’s curatorial focus and past initiatives organized by the gallery, these sessions are expected to involve process-oriented demonstrations, technique-based instruction, or guided explorations of material practices relevant to dark art. Such events would likely appeal not only to exhibiting artists but also to collectors, students, and cultural workers seeking greater insight into the construction and conceptual development of works that fall outside mainstream visual categories.

The spatial configuration of Nau Bòstik—particularly the auxiliary rooms adjacent to Sala Andy Warhol—supports the implementation of these programs without interfering with the exhibition layout. These areas may be used to host lectures, screenings, or informal critiques, allowing participants to engage with the material in a setting that encourages conversation and reflection. By activating different parts of the venue for distinct purposes, the fair’s organizers appear to be constructing a layered experience that moves beyond passive viewing.

While no institutional partnerships have been publicly confirmed, the curators’ involvement with other independent art spaces in Barcelona, such as FotoNostrum, suggests a potential for informal collaborations or shared programming frameworks. Moreover, the fair’s communications have emphasized the importance of building community through participation rather than visibility alone. This ethos is reflected in the event’s artist selection process, which requires applicants to articulate their project’s conceptual foundations and its resonance with the fair’s thematic orientation.

Taken together, the talks, workshops, and possible partnerships underscore the organizers’ ambition to position Obscura BCN as a platform for both exhibition and exchange. These initiatives extend the fair’s function beyond commerce and aesthetic presentation, situating it instead as a site for dialogue, reflection, and knowledge production within a growing field of dark and symbolically charged contemporary practices.

First Impressions and Future Reception

As Obscura BCN 2025 approaches its inaugural edition, early indicators suggest a high level of interest from artists, collectors, and specialized audiences invested in non-mainstream visual culture. The pre-selection process, which requires applicants to submit materials demonstrating both conceptual alignment and artistic integrity, has already drawn substantial participation. According to official communications distributed in April 2025, the organizers noted an influx of proposals, prompting them to extend detailed individual feedback where possible—an effort that reinforces their stated commitment to curatorial rigor and community-building.

While the event remains forthcoming, public anticipation has been shaped in part by the gallery’s prior initiatives and the visibility of its curators in related cultural platforms. The gallery’s online presence, including regular artist features and open calls, has helped cultivate an audience beyond Barcelona, positioning the fair as a point of convergence for practitioners working in visual idioms that have often existed on the margins of institutional exhibition spaces. For many artists operating within the framework of dark art—whose work engages with themes traditionally seen as peripheral—Obscura BCN represents a rare opportunity to exhibit in a context that prioritizes formal quality and thematic cohesion.

Critical attention to the fair is also expected to emerge as the event nears its opening. Given its claim as the first art fair in Europe dedicated exclusively to dark art, Obscura BCN will likely be evaluated not only on curatorial execution and aesthetic consistency, but also on its capacity to articulate a viable public and market structure for a genre still largely defined by its outsider status. Institutional observers may view the event as a case study in genre-specific curation, assessing whether such focused frameworks can sustain long-term interest and critical legitimacy. Conversely, for the artists and curators involved, the fair may serve as a testing ground for new formats of presentation and engagement, particularly in how dark aesthetics can be integrated into broader contemporary art discourses.

The organizers have already suggested that, contingent on the success of this edition, future iterations may expand in scale and scope. While such projections remain tentative, they reflect the fair’s ambition to evolve into a recurring platform that can accommodate more artists, attract broader audiences, and foster ongoing dialogue across disciplines. This forward-looking perspective is balanced by a cautious attention to logistics and space limitations, with the 2025 edition deliberately capped to ensure curatorial focus and spatial integrity.

In its current form, Obscura BCN 2025 stands as both an experiment and a statement. By situating dark art within a framework that is both critical and commercially viable, the fair challenges assumptions about what belongs within contemporary exhibition circuits. Its success will depend not only on attendance or sales, but on its ability to provoke reflection, foster exchange, and make visible a body of work that has long existed in the shadows of formal recognition.

Conclusion

By foregrounding works that confront transience, corporeality, and symbolic ambiguity, Obscura BCN 2025 contributes to an evolving conversation about the place of darkness in contemporary visual culture. Its curatorial framework, shaped by Ariadna Royo and Ameera Mills, not only grants visibility to a historically marginal aesthetic but situates it within a legitimate and formally disciplined exhibition model.

As the fair moves toward its opening, or settles into memory, it offers a moment to consider how such practices resonate with broader cultural narratives and artistic lineages. Readers engaging with these themes—whether through their own creative work, academic research, or lived experience—are invited to reflect on how darkness continues to shape and inform the visual languages of our time.