Hola, queridos amigos — welcome back to Sombra Y Cultura. I’m really glad you’re here with me today.

Before we dive in, I want to try something simple. Nothing dramatic — just a small moment to settle in.

If you’re able, take a slow breath… and picture something ordinary nearby. Maybe a book on your desk, a glass on the counter, a key in your pocket. Don’t overthink it — just let that object come to mind.

Now imagine it shifts, even just a little.The book feels heavier, like it’s holding a story you haven’t lived yet. The glass catches the light in a way you’ve never noticed.
The key — suddenly — looks like it could open something far beyond a lock.

That tiny change… that subtle shift in perception…That’s the doorway into the world of Chema Madoz.

He’s a photographer who doesn’t ask us to look harder — he asks us to look differently. And today, we’re stepping into the universe he’s been building quietly, carefully, for decades.

So who is Chema Madoz?

He was born in 1958 in Madrid, Spain. As a young man, he studied Art History at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid — while also taking photography courses at the Centro de Enseñanza de la Imagen.

He began photographing in the 1980s, exploring portraiture and human subjects. But something didn’t sit right. In a later interview, he said people “don’t say anything about what they hide.”

He longed for something more — less literal, more evocative. Less what-is, more what-could-be. By the late 1980s and early 1990s, Madoz turned away from people, and toward the everyday: objects.

He made an artistic bet: to see the world not as it appears, but as it might whisper.

What happened next became quietly revolutionary.

Madoz began building a visual language of objects — stripped of context, freed from function, re imagined. With simple black-and-white photography, minimalist light and shadow, he staged everyday items — books, combs, lamps, glasses, metal pieces —in compositions that felt surreal, poetic, sometimes unsettling, always evocative.

He didn’t title many works — or if he did, titles were cryptic. Instead, he let the images speak.The ambiguity invites the viewer in: What does this mean to you?

Imagine a wine glass whose stem seems too long, casting a shadow like a silhouette.
Or a comb bending as if metal were water.
Or a key — half-buried in light and shadow — that feels like it could open not a door, but a memory.

Each photograph a quiet poem. (click here to view Chema's work)

In the 1990s, Madoz’s work began to attract serious attention. He won the Kodak Spain Prize in 1991, and by 1999, the prestigious Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid dedicated a full retrospective to him (Objetos 1990–1999) — the first time that museum honored a living Spanish photographer that way.

In 2000, he received the Premio Nacional de Fotografía (Spain’s National Photography Award), cementing his place as one of photography’s most important voices.

Since then, his images have traveled the world — exhibited in galleries and museums across Europe, Asia, and the Americas.

But while exhibits and awards matter — the real magic lies in how his work changes the way we see.

Chema Madoz’s photography is a meditation on perception, context, and imagination. His work challenges us to question what is real, what is assumed, what is hidden behind everyday shapes.

He reminds us: reality isn’t just what we see — it’s what we decide to look for.

For listeners like you and me — photographers, dreamers, creators — Madoz offers a profound lesson: Art doesn’t need complexity. Sometimes the simplest frame — a broken comb, a bent key, a cracked glass — is enough to challenge the mind, stir the emotional undercurrent, awaken imagination.

He shows us that beauty doesn’t require grandeur; sometimes, it lives in quiet objects, in forgotten places, in everyday details.

If this journey through Chema Madoz’s world moved you — if you closed your eyes earlier and felt the shift — I invite you to (click here). There you’ll find a link to make a small donation to support Sombra Y Cultura.

No pressure — just a gentle way to help keep stories like this alive.

My Final Thoughts

To me, Chema Madoz is a poet — not of words, but of light, shadow, object, and silence.

He teaches us that the boundary between reality and imagination is thin — so thin that a single photograph can cross it.

In a world saturated with noise, his images are quiet refuges. They demand nothing. Yet they give everything: wonder, reflection, possibility.

If you listen again to the object you imagined at the beginning of this episode — the book, the key, the glass — I hope you see it a little differently now.

Because the world isn’t only what we look at —it’s what we make of what we see.

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for joining me today and listening to this journey into the poetry of objects.

If this episode resonated with you, please take a moment to like, subscribe, or leave a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts — it helps other listeners discover these stories and helps Sombra Y Cultura grow.

If you’d like to support the show — or help me continue uncovering hidden gems like Chema Madoz— you can check out the donation link here. Every little bit helps.

I’m Chris, and until next time — keep looking through the lens with curiosity, wonder, and an open heart. Gracias, and I’ll see you soon.