He revives vintage photographs, then detonates them with absurdity. What starts off familiar ends in surreal destruction.
“Vintage calm meets neon jolt.”
In his latest solo show, That’s All Folks, at My Name’s Lolita Art in Madrid, Paco Pomet lures you into the past—only to blow it apart. His paintings are rooted in the softness of vintage photography: black-and-white villages, rural stillness, historical quiet. But then he plants something explosive. A figure with a flame for a head. A glowing red void. A tech icon dropped like a bomb in a scene that once felt safe.
Pomet doesn’t just paint. He rewires memory. Each canvas is a quiet photograph sabotaged. The result is visual tension that doesn’t resolve—it lingers, like fallout. You’re left unsure if you’re supposed to laugh or brace yourself.
“The punchline is in the painter’s punch.”
The show’s title, That’s All Folks, may borrow from cartoons, but there’s no comfort here. Pomet’s humor isn’t designed to entertain—it’s there to disarm. You ease into the imagery with familiarity, then something detonates. It’s not a joke, it’s a jolt. His work makes satire feel like sabotage.
With exacting oil technique and classical structure, Pomet builds trust only to destroy it. That destruction is the whole point. His surreal interruptions aren’t stylistic flourishes—they’re cracks in the illusion that anything about the past was ever neat, tidy, or untouched by chaos.
“Humor’s honey hides the bite.”
At its core, Pomet’s work is about disruption. The surreal isn’t fantasy—it’s revelation. He paints what nostalgia forgets: that the past is just as strange and fragile as the present. By inserting chaos into historical imagery, he exposes how much we romanticize what was never calm to begin with.
This isn’t escapism. It’s confrontation. When nostalgia goes nuclear, it leaves beauty, absurdity, and a mess you can’t ignore. That’s the world Pomet builds—and then gleefully dismantles.
That’s All Folks is on view through September 7, 2025 at My Name’s Lolita Art in Madrid.
