Born in his father’s painting studio in Salamanca, Spain, artist Ricardo Cavolo has spent a lifetime surrounded by pencils, brushes, canvases, and colors. Today, Cavolo paints and draws professionally and for pleasure, with an artistic style he feels is the product of so many years of his father’s influence. In Cavolo’s words: he “understood that creating something pure and sincere was just to open my chest and show my background’s universe to the people.”
In 2016, we proudly presented a site-specific light box installation by Cavolo for The Betsy’s Escribe Aquí Iberoamerican Festival. Cavolo has since gone on to do important work with the cities of Moscow, St. Petersburg, London, and Montreal, as well as brands like Starbucks and Alexander McQueen.
The Betsy’s Escribe Aqui 2016 exhibition was compiled from select images from Cavolo’s book, 101 Artists to Listen to Before You Die, which he describes as “a personal diary speaking about myself through the music I love.” Every page highlights a singer, musician, or band Cavolo listens to regularly, each with a particular purpose in his life.
At the time, Cavolo's work was part of a new exhibition at the Centro Cultural España Miami. The exhibition, “Spanish Illustrators: The Color of Optimism,” featured the works of the most relevant contemporary illustrators in Spain, including other groundbreaking artists such as Paula Bonet, Carla Fuentes, Gabriel Moreno, Silvia Prada, and Paco Roca. As part of this visit, Cavolo created a new mural for CCEMiami, located in downtown Miami.
Currently based in Barcelona, Cavalo has since published another book, titled 101 Movies to Watch Before You Die. The Betsy has selected 26 images from that book, which we are excited to display when we safely reopen.
