Daniel Torres: “Barcelona is a city that dialogues with its past and its future”

Daniel Torres is one of the key figures in comics at the national level. In his more than 35 years of career, this Valencian cartoonist and illustrator has explored graphic storytelling in all its facets: from his retrofuturistic adventure series Roco Vargas to the graphic novel Bubbles, including children's books, such as The Adventures of Tom, or the graphic essay in The House. Chronicle of a Conquest.

He defines himself as a “storyteller through images on paper”, who, fortunately, often finds inspiration “with a brush in hand”. His art knows no boundaries and on this occasion, he has not hesitated to venture into urban art to express his style, which is “refined and adapted to the particularities of the narrative” on the Núñez i Navarro construction wall on Marina Street, 202. A large-scale mural that Daniel Torres has designed for NN Wallery and where he presents his most personal vision of the timeless Barcelona.

Daniel, with over 35 years dedicated to graphic storytelling in all its forms, and suddenly, an urban art project, how has the experience been?

A new challenge. A very large space, on the street at sidewalk level, with the potential “reader” in motion and something to assemble with all this.

What does urban art mean to you and what relationship does it have with comics?

I see urban art as a new medium for telling stories and continuing to develop my language.

What does urban art contribute to cities?

A new realization that art and urban space need each other.

In the description of your work, you mentioned that the perfect title for the wall would be: “Barcelona yesterday, today, and tomorrow”, What can we find at Marina 202?

Barcelona is a city that engages in dialogue with its past and future.

You also tell us that your goal in making the wall was “for the pedestrian who passes by to stop and decipher it if they have the time and inclination”. What hidden things are there in it?

It's a dialogue with images, so the pedestrian can walk past it, listen to it casually, or engage in the conversation.

How do you imagine the Barcelona of the future?

Multicultural, polysocial, and compelled to resolve the ongoing conflicts that arise in a large metropolis between urban space and personal space.

How have you experienced the transformation of the city in the 20 years that you have lived there?

As if watching a changing portrait. I have practically witnessed the transformation of the Poblenou neighborhood from a workers' village into an urban core full of new identity markers and highly sought after as a residential, creative, and leisure space.

How was the creation process of the work? Did you have a clear idea from the beginning of what you wanted to capture?

Yes, in the first draft I already had the theme clear: what present and future Barcelona owe to its Roman, medieval, modernist past...

What did you think of Berok's staging of your sketch on the wall?

Quick and efficient. A perfect transfer from paper to wall.

With the NN Wallery project, Núñez i Navarro aims to improve people's surroundings through urban art, do you think the mission is being fulfilled?

Yes, of course. I have already said that since I see urban art as an artistic dialogue between the street and the people, any invitation to that dialogue is desirable.

And personally, what has the project contributed to you? Would you do it again?

The interplay between a personal narrative, a large format, and an exceptional location.

Of course I would repeat a similar proposal.

The walls of NN Wallery's construction work are an ephemeral project; they remain for as long as the construction work does. How do you experience this temporality?

In reality, all art and every artistic medium is changing and ephemeral. For the creator, when their work “leaves” their workspace, it begins a life of its own in a way that is foreign to the creator themselves, what happens to it is no longer in their hands.

Do you think Barcelona lacks "art" in its streets?

It already enjoys many proposals in that regard, but as art is a wealth that does not depreciate, any new contribution should be welcomed.

And finally, what projects are you currently working on?

I am about to see my latest book published: “The Future That Never Was”.

We invite you to discover all the works of NN Wallery on our website!