MAD.DC | Drawing two Capitals

MAD.DC is the latest visual arts project of the Cultural Office of the Embassy of Spain in Washington, DC. In collaboration with the ABC Museum of Drawing and Illustration in Madrid, the institutions have put together an exhibition that brings together the work of six Spanish illustrators who have traveled to both capitals to capture their urban essence through drawing.

This two-way project culminates in a book and two exhibitions. The first opens at the Spanish Cultural Center in Washington, DC, on November 6, 2025, with the second following at the ABC Museum in Madrid in September 2026.

Each artist contributes a distinctive gaze and outstanding technical quality, reflecting the creative vitality of contemporary illustration in Spain. Over eighty works, produced between Madrid and Washington, invite audiences on both sides of the Atlantic to discover each other’s cities through six unique, personal journeys that converge into a vibrant, kaleidoscopic portrait of the two capitals.

1. Joaquín Dorao, a traditional sketchbook artist, captures dynamic, spontaneous drawings with incredible technical skill, sometimes completing them on the spot with a delicacy that balances freshness and precision.
2. Ana Rojo, also a street sketcher, uses watercolor and a more elaborate process, combining photos and sketches of a location to create images filled with vitality and depth, where everyday people and sounds come to life.
3. Antonia Santolaya adopts a sequential, graphic novel-style approach to urban sketching, mixing images, texts, and overheard phrases to narrate stories in her sketchbooks, working impulsively in the streets but refining her scenes later.
4. Javier Chavarría, with his dramatic, conceptual style influenced by theater, reimagines the city in surreal, symbolic scenes that merge iconic elements, figures, and color.
5. Curro Suárez’s 1950s-inspired urban images combine bold, contrasting colors with expressive black ink lines, creating monumental figures in stark, empty spaces.
6. Lastly, Cinta Arribas brings a fresh, humorous perspective to cities like Washington and Madrid, using naive figuratism and striking colors to capture everyday moments with a touch of irony, conveying the idea that “life should always be a bit more fun.”

"Paul Klee wrote that drawing is taking a line for a walk, but when it comes to walking there is nothing better than a human being, particularly the flâneur described by Walter Benjamin: someone who gets lost in the city, but gets lost with a method, wandering and getting carried away. And we have launched six human beings born in Spain into this project of wandering around both the Spanish capital and its counterpart in the United States, Washington, DC, bringing the two cities together through a single creative approach that is now seeing the light of day on paper.

Of course, this idea is not original, nor is it anything new for the Cultural Office of the Embassy of Spain in Washington, D.C., as it forms part of its underlying aim: to make Spain’s extremely talented creatives known in this country. In Illustrating Spain in the US, seven comic-book artists illustrated seven instances of the presence of Spain in the United States. And in DC.es, a project honored by a book from this selfsame publishing house (La Fábrica), five Spanish photographers (all former recipients of scholarships to the Academy of Spain in Rome) presented work derived from a stay in Washington, D.C. This time, the idea was to apply the same approach to drawing, and the result is MAD.DC, a project for which we found an ideal partner in the Museo ABC de Dibujo e Ilustración, and a perfect collaborator in its director, Inmaculada Corcho, who came onboard immediately with her contagious enthusiasm, as did the team from La Fábrica. This edition from a prestigious publishing house, with bilingual texts and distribution in the United States, guarantees the project a prolonged shelf life.

The proposal was simple: six illustrators, a trip to Washington, D.C. (three trips in fall and three in spring, the seasons in which this city really glows, from the splendor of its cherry blossom to the feast of colors in November—although this time they were both soaking wet!), and one end result, going back and forth, like a call and response. An end result that was manifested via two exhibitions —one in Washington, the other in Madrid— and the book, complete with drawings of both cities produced by the six illustrators.

We left it to Inmaculada, with her extensive knowledge of the local scene, to choose the six illustrators, who had but one thing in common: sheer class. They provided distinct gazes on the city and their own ways of capturing it, resulting in great variety. We welcomed these chosen illustrators to this city where greenery borders on solemnity, where power is mixed with nature, and we enjoyed the hospitality of Professor Villarrubia in the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore, who enabled the illustrators to travel to our neighboring city and share their drawings with his students.

The truth is that we could not be more thrilled by the fruit of these months of intense work. Like all the projects undertaken by this Office, this has been a shared endeavor: everything has been a collective effort, from the initial idea to the execution. The book —equally collaborative— serves, therefore, to showcase our artists from the world of drawing and illustration in this country. They will undoubtedly be well received, as illustration is one of the fields that most effectively transports our culture, and our illustrators are now working with the most prestigious media outlets in the United States. We hope that this project fulfills our desire to give them even greater visibility and, at the same time, bring together these two cities by throwing greater light on Madrid for the citizens of Washington and on DC for those of Madrid. And may the reader enjoy this book as much as we have enjoyed the entire process."

—Cultural Office of the Embassy of Spain in Washington, D.C.

Online exhibition

If you can’t visit us, explore the works of the six Spanish illustrators on SPAIN arts & culture ON!, our online platform dedicated to long-form digital projects and virtual exhibitions showcasing acclaimed and emerging authors, artists and performers from Spain.

Important Information

• A reservation on Eventbrite is mandatory, printed tickets are not required.
• Seating is available on a first-come, first-serve basis.
• Doors open 20 minutes before posted showtime.
• Ticket holders will have access to the event while space is available. A reservation does not guarantee admission.
• No Late Seating, ticket holders may not be allowed to enter 15 minutes after posted showtime.
• Right of admission reserved.
• If you need special assistance, please contact us at contact@spainculture.us.

How to get there:

The best way to arrive is by public transportation. The closest Metro station is Columbia Heights (Green line). Limited metered and two-hour zoned parking is available in the surrounding neighborhoods. Public parking garage is available at DC USA Shopping Mall (Columbia Heights Metro Station).

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