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YOW Artist series x Mercedes Bellido. Born in 1991 in Zaragoza, Spain, Mercedes Bellido is a painter and illustrator currently based in Madrid - and at the forefront of contemporary Spanish art. Inspired by surrealist masters such as Giorgio de Chirico and René Magritte, Bellido’s paintings effortlessly create an aura of mystery and symbolic power, where nothing is what it seems and every little detail has a story to tell. The artist’s enigmatic work often blurs the lines between good and evil, between beauty and decay, inviting the viewer to reconsider the assumptions they make about life, death, and everything that hangs in the balance. And her metaphysical style - which she dubs “Baroque surrealism” - evokes both the mystical and macabre through recurring motifs of skulls, stars, tarot cards, and tattered polaroids. Yet she often pairs such sinister symbols with the flora and fauna of our natural world, including fruits, flowers and wild animals such as panthers, snakes, and birds of prey. Given her
