Roberto Rivadeneira is a guest curator of ArtConnect's Artists to Watch ‘26

Roberto Rivadeneira (b. 1991, Quito, Ecuador) is an artist, curator, and creative director working between Madrid and Berlin. His practice explores the relationship between perception, time, and abstraction, moving fluidly across painting, digital image-making, installation, and spatial projects. At the core of his work is a sustained curiosity about the space between what we see, remember, and imagine.

Rivadeneira works with custom AI models, 3D scanning, and digital rendering to construct abstract environments that question how space and reality are understood. Rather than illustrating technology or science, he uses these tools as conceptual frameworks to reorganize meaning and perception. His recent research is informed by ideas such as entropy, time dilation, and the block universe theory, which shape both his visual language and his approach to exhibition-making, where abstraction becomes a way to confront reality rather than escape it.

Alongside his artistic practice, Rivadeneira is the founder and creative director of DOBLE ERRE, a hybrid space in Madrid dedicated to production, exhibition, and collaborative research across art, design, and technology. He is also the curator and director of Ventana Project in Madrid, where he develops exhibition programs focused on emerging practices, spatial experimentation, and contemporary cultural discourse.

After studying design in Sydney, Australia, Rivadeneira lived and worked in Berlin for nine years, developing his practice within the city’s experimental cultural ecosystem. In 2025, he relocated to Madrid to launch DOBLE ERRE and establish Ventana Project in the city. His current vision centers on building hybrid cultural models that understand the future as a shared, multifaceted process, where contemporary art and design operate as an interwoven fabric shaping how we think, build, and experience culture.

As an artist yourself, and the founder of Doble Erre, how do you approach the curatorial side of the space, and how do those two perspectives meet when you’re curating?

Opening DOBLE ERRE was a way of creating a space where different projects could coexist, with Ventana Project operating as the contemporary art and curatorial platform within it. From the beginning, the decision wasn’t only about making exhibitions, but about trying to understand what’s happening beyond the art world.

I’m very interested in the social, political, and economic variables that shape our moment, and how those shifts affect the way we perceive reality, time, and space. A lot of my own artistic research revolves around questioning the nature of reality itself, thinking about spacetime, technology, simulation theory, and broader existential ideas.

“From the beginning, the decision wasn’t only about making exhibitions, but about trying to understand what’s happening beyond the art world.”

On the surface, these might sound like disparate interests, but for me their intersection is exactly what brought this project to life. Questioning the status quo not only from a curatorial position, but from a deeper “what is reality” perspective, helped to blur boundaries between my artistic practice, the curatorial program, and the way the space itself functions.

When I curate, I approach it with the same questions I use in my studio. I try to create links between ideas, materials, and ways of seeing, rather than imposing a fixed narrative. I believe exhibitions should speak for themselves and provoke a sense of awareness. Why are you looking at this? Why are you here, standing in front of this space, at this moment?

“I believe exhibitions should speak for themselves and provoke a sense of awareness.”

One of my main motivations right now is to understand where we are as humans and where we might be going. In a universe full of infinite possibilities, I’m drawn to the idea that I get to experience consciousness from this specific angle, and to play with that position as an artist, curator, and creative director through the projects we build at DOBLE ERRE.

DOBLE ERRE itself is a 215m² industrial space in Usera, about twenty minutes from the center of Madrid. We designed it as a flexible white cube with artist studios at the back, a space for meetings and shared dinners, and an open patio. It’s meant a playful place where thinking, making, and showing can happen at the same time.

What tends to make an artistic practice feel coherent to you, even when the work itself is evolving?

For me, coherence comes from the link between ideas. I don’t see a clear boundary between my artistic, curatorial, and creative practices; they’re all part of the same thinking process. Even as the work evolves across different formats, what holds it together is a shared set of questions and concerns that keep reappearing, just from different angles.

See what Roberto had to say about the winners of this year’s Artist to Watch.

Learn more about Roberto

DOBLE ERRE | Ventana Project | Instagram