Buenos Aires based artist Nicolás Romero, aka “Ever Siempre” or “Ever”, began his career painting letter-based graffiti which has since evolved into colorful, figurative oil paintings. His portraits of every day people, family members, and political figures are usually based on images that he finds on the internet, then reinterpreted into surrealistic paintings that echo his street art. Self-described as “obsessive” about the human body and experimentation with its form, Ever brings a certain personal mythology to his subjects. He has credited his inspiration to Symbolist and Impressionist painters like Gustav Klimt, Francis Bacon, Vincent van Gogh, and Diego Velazquez, combined with his own contemporary references. As in Klimt’s works especially, they are often surrounded by beams of colors, or “crying” mosaic-like shapes tiled with flowers and other motifs. Symbols such as these play an important role in Ever’s narrative; by intertwining these elements of pattern, texture, colors so abruptly, he aims to explore the human condition. For his “Logo” series, which is currently on display at Athen B. Gallery in Oakland, California, Ever says, “I’m trying to talk about how on this time we belong to a symbol, our life is surrounded to this type of politics, the resume of our life is a paper.”