Between the digital and the analog: a search for identity through art

The artist Cristian Zuzunaga stars in the 33rd intervention of the project NN Wallery in Barcelona

Cristian Zuzunaga has spent his entire life researching the boundaries between digital and analog, urban and natural, personal and collective. His work is a constant reflection on identity, environment, and scale. From his studio in Bristol, United Kingdom, and with an international trajectory that has taken him to London, New York, and Barcelona, among other cities, Zuzunaga transforms elements as seemingly simple as a pixel or a grid into symbols of universal connection. We spoke with him about his beginnings, his creative evolution, and his urban art intervention in the NN Wallery project.

A journey through cultures, cities, and scales

Cristian Zuzunaga's passion for urban art was kindled in his childhood, watching Miró's mural at the Barcelona airport. "Its scale, the colors... later on, I understood its meaning," he recalls. His background was not linear: he worked as a model between 1996 and 2001, a period that allowed him to live in cities like New York, London, and Paris, and to observe how art interacts with the urban space.

"In New York, I discovered the giant-scale murals, many were advertisements, but hand-painted with an impressive photographic quality", he shares. In London, by 2001, the discovery of Banksy deeply marked him. "It was a different kind of urban art, more direct, with a message, that communicated with the surroundings." It was there that he decided to study at the London College of Printing, an institution that allowed him to explore his interest in typography, architecture, and philosophy. "I became obsessed with the idea of what attracts us to cities, how they function as organisms", explains the artist. That reflection led him to search for the basic units of visual language: the brick in the city, the grid in typography, the pixel in the digital realm.

An identity built from the blend

With a Peruvian father and a Catalan mother, Cristian asserts that he doesn't feel defined by any nationality, his sense of not belonging became a driving force for exploration: "I wanted to understand what unites us as people beyond gender, race, or skin color."

She found her answer in geometry. "The grid allowed me to build a universal language", claims Zuzunaga. Through techniques such as screen printing, the letterpress or photography, he developed a body of work that mixes the analog with the digital, the handmade with the conceptual. "There's a coherent narrative since I started: everything revolves around the grid and the square, their power to generate order and emotion", he confirms to us.

From Pixel to Mural: Returning to the Street

For years, Zuzunaga's work focused on the digital realm. "When the pixel came into my life it was a revelation", he explains. He founded his brand –“Zuzunaga”–, collaborated with textile brands and applied his visual language to multiple mediums. But over time, and especially after the pandemic, he felt the need to return to the beginning: the tangible.

"I consciously decided to step back, because for me, art has to be physical. The urban environment is real. The digital is mental," he claims. This return to the physical culminated in the creation of Frankenstein Press, a workshop in Bristol with restored century-old machinery. "We seek to heal through printing, to regain direct contact with the community," he says about this new vital chapter.

Urban art that transforms the city

This vision resonated with NN Wallery, the artistic project by Grup Núñez i Navarro to revitalize spaces through urban art. “Since I was a child, the buildings of Grup Núñez i Navarro have always been part of the landscape of the Eixample that surrounded me”, he comments. Participating in this project was also a way to connect with Barcelona from another place, a key city in his career. His mural at number 40 on Enamorats street is a personal nod to that bond. “I wanted to create a work that would converse with the building, that had rhythm, like a piano. Something subtle, serene, elegant”, he explains. The color palette, inspired by details of the building itself and the diagonal shapes, refers both to the Diagonal as well as to the structure of the Eixample. “It's a mural that wouldn't work anywhere else. It only makes sense there”, the author asserts.

Art, technology, and a fulfilling life

Zuzunaga advocates for an art that intertwines the digital and the analog, but always focused on the human being. "For years I believed that art should use contemporary technology. But over time I realized that what's important is not the technology, but what it says about us."

For him, traveling, reading, and observing are constant sources of inspiration. Moreover, he is convinced that art and design can transform lives: "We are all born creative. But most forget it. Art is essential for a fulfilling life." And when asked what he would recommend to anyone wanting to discover a different Barcelona, his advice is clear: "Walk. Get off the tourist track. Discover the neighborhoods. Observe. That's where the uniqueness lies."