The 29-year-old Spanish painter who rose to fame with a Lily Allen album cover sets her sights on L.A.

Spanish creator Nieves González arrives successful Los Angeles for her archetypal U.S. solo accumulation having already experienced a sensation of fame.

The 29-year-old caught the attraction of the creation and manner worlds past twelvemonth aft being discovered connected Instagram and commissioned to overgarment the screen of Lily Allen’s medium “West End Girl.” Depicting the vocalist arsenic a Baroque aristocrat clad successful modern decorator fashion, the representation helped propel González onto an planetary stage.

Collectors person taken notice. The 13 paintings successful “A Friendship Story,” opening Saturday astatine Richard Heller Gallery successful Santa Monica, person already sold out, according to the gallery, with prices ranging from $4,000 to $20,000.

Elle mag dubbed González “Fashion’s Favorite New Artist,” portion exhibitions successful Rome, Paris, Belfast and Bilbao, Spain, expanded her estimation crossed Europe.

González developed her classical yet defiantly modern attack portion studying astatine the University of Seville, wherever Spanish masters specified arsenic Diego Velázquez and Francisco de Zurbarán painted successful the naturalist Baroque tradition. Drawing liberally from fashion, creation past and mundane life, she often dresses the subjects of her portraits successful puffer jackets — garments she wears herself during the acold winters of Granada, Spain, wherever she lives. The material, she said, recalls the sculptural rendering of cloth successful paintings by Zurbarán and Velázquez: the folds, the volumes, the precocious shine.

Nieves González often dresses her subjects successful puffer jackets.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

“It works beautifully from a ocular standpoint,” she said, speaking Spanish during an interrogation astatine Santa Monica’s Bergamot Station a fewer days earlier the accumulation opened. Wearing bluish jeans and a pinkish button-down blouse, she echoed the pastel blues and pinks that look passim galore of the works surrounding her.

“Fashion inspires me,” she said. “Just arsenic 17th period artists drew inspiration from the manner of their time — often creating paintings that served arsenic catalogs of existent styles — I bash the same,” she said. “The extremity is to not simply convey a circumstantial connection oregon ideology but to make a testament to a procreation and the epoch successful which we live.”

This fall, González’s coating “La Sfida” (2025) volition look successful the Städel Museum’s accumulation “Mary Magdalene. Sin. Pray. Love” successful Frankfurt, Germany, alongside works by Lady Gaga, Marlene Dumas and Auguste Rodin. The coating depicts Mary Magdalene with long, flowing hair, draped successful a regal reddish garment and clutching a skull — a modern mentation of 1 of Christianity’s astir enduring figures.

“Nieves González is the youngest of these artists and, astatine the aforesaid time, astir apt the 1 who astir intimately follows successful the contented of the Old Masters,” curators Bastian Eclercy and Stefan Roller wrote successful an email.

The Santa Monica accumulation marks an improvement from the paintings that established González’s reputation. Earlier works often centered connected solitary women posed with the self-possession of royal portraits oregon spiritual icons. “A Friendship Story” focuses connected relationships betwixt pairs of women, exploring friendship, intimacy, enactment and shared experience.

For González, relationship is 1 of the astir profound aspects of women’s lives and a taxable she felt deserved greater attraction successful painting.

Victoria Rios, a curator who works with González, said the artist’s paintings “rewrite the narratives of the past, rewrite the past of martyrdom and spot women astatine the center.”

“Nothing successful her coating is arbitrary,” Rios said successful an email. “Every ceremonial determination is besides an ethical one.”

“The equine elevates the art; symbolically, it carries connotations of elegance and nobility,” Nieves González said. “It seemed similar a mode to elevate the conception of friendship.”

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

González often turns creation humanities conventions connected their head. In “Salir a robar caballos: Go retired to bargain horses,” she replaces the archetypal representation of a gallant antheral connected horseback with 2 young women dressed successful puffer and vinyl jackets, posed similar modern Amazons atop rearing horses.

“The equine elevates the art; symbolically, it carries connotations of elegance and nobility,” González said. “It seemed similar a mode to elevate the conception of friendship. It besides has an constituent of play, escapade and fun, since having amusive is portion of the enslaved too.”

The creator besides sees her enactment done a feminist lens.

“We unrecorded successful a patriarchal society, and so, unfortunately, I beryllium to the oppressed conception of that society, and my enactment relates to that,” she said. “It stems from a struggle, an knowing and a process of redefining concepts that we person historically established arsenic normal, earthy and habitual.”

“I americium funny successful portraying america arsenic brave and powerful, sometimes adjacent with an aerial of haughtiness,” she said.

Another painting, “Something’s crossed implicit maine and I can’t spell back” (2026), captures González’s fusion of humanities and modern references. Two women dressed successful greenish and pinkish fur cradle each other’s heads, reimagining medieval depictions of cephalophores — Christian martyrs who transportation their severed heads portion continuing to preach oregon pray.

The rubric comes from a pivotal enactment successful the 1991 movie “Thelma & Louise,” marking the turning constituent for Geena Davis’ quality Thelma, afloat committing to her yet fatal escapade with Susan Sarandon’s Louise.

Nieves González, “Holding You,” 2026 (oil connected canvas).

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

González builds each coating from what she calls a “Frankenstein” — a integer composite assembled from archival photographs, recovered images and notation material. The coating process past takes over. A mid-project sojourn to the Prado Museum successful Madrid, for instance, mightiness nonstop her backmost to the integer sketch to propulsion successful a compositional constituent from Velázquez earlier returning to the canvas. “The last effect often ends up being wholly antithetic from what I initially envisioned,” she said.

Heller began representing González, whom helium calls an “original voice,” past twelvemonth aft being introduced to her enactment by different painter.

Staging her archetypal U.S. solo accumulation successful Los Angeles alternatively than New York reflects what helium sees arsenic a much relaxed situation for an emerging artist, without the glare and expectations of the New York creation world.

“L.A. feels a small little constrained,” Heller said. “It feels a small much free.”

González’s representation of Allen is presently connected presumption astatine London’s National Portrait Gallery, hanging successful the aforesaid country arsenic a self-portrait by David Hockney. She said portion it “has been precise important successful presumption of media exposure,” exhibitions and nonrecreational opportunities were already successful question earlier the medium screen brought wider attention.

“I’ve ever said that what I privation to bash successful beingness is marque a surviving from painting,” she said.

Mission accomplished.