NÉSTOR REINALDO X UNODUNO

We talked with Néstor Reinaldo, the Galician artist who draws upside down, thinks in shadows rather than shapes, and has created for UNODEUNO the “Winged Angel”: a work that inspires, contradicts, and redefines the balance between divinity and the street.

The space smells of history. A vintage room, dark, silent. A place that once was.

Néstor enters slowly, like someone surveying an emotional landscape before a physical one. He looks at the walls, listens to the atmosphere. “It’s very vintage… but you can tell what happened here,” he says. “There were emotions here.”

Néstor is an artist who observes things through reflection, through the light that touches an object, through the shadow it casts. He is attentive to detail, to gesture, to the slightest texture. In his gaze there is technique, which he calls "flaw." And in his "flaw," a kind of lucid madness, a vulnerable and courageous experimentation.

His most recent work, created for UNODEUNO, is a turning point: the Winged Angel , a figure with outstretched wings, the UNODEUNO Crop Top and a clear intention —not to ascend, but to stay among us.

This conversation is an immersion into his process, his obsession with light, the necessary madness to create, and how he found in UNODEUNO a space where his sensibility fits without needing to be translated. He deconstructs his own method and reveals an uncomfortable truth: art begins where control ends.

Q. What does this space convey to you?

Nestor - Something happened here. There was culture, emotion. The city came together. This place was important, and it can be again.

Q. Let's talk about the artistic moment you're in right now. Which work do you think stands out above all the others?

Néstor - The Winged Angel I made for UNODEUNO. For me, it's above all the others. Because of its volume, the light, the shadows, the t-shirt… everything. Right now, it's soaring above any other work I've done. For me, it's the best.

Q. Even above the giant mural you just created with Marcos Puhinguer?

Nestor - They are two very different formats. The mural is experimentation, texture, macro. The angel is pure detail.

Q. Did you ever imagine doing something so big?

Nestor - Not at all. I wanted to do urban murals, but I never thought I'd have institutional support for works like this. When you see that they trust you… it's exciting.

Q. You often talk about madness as part of the process. What does it mean to you?

Nestor - Madness, humility, and daring. Without those three things, you don't learn. You don't see. You don't hear. I'm very curious. I get involved in everything. I try everything.

Q. Your obsession with light and shadow is evident. Where does it come from?

Nestor - From my studies, I suppose. I spend all day observing how light falls, what shadows it casts, how a shape changes. Sometimes I see a cup and I don't see the cup: I see five different shadows.

Q. You draw portraits upside down. Why?

Nestor - “So I don’t focus on the face. I want to see lines, not expressions. If I focus on the gaze, I’ll limit myself. I prefer to trick my brain. I turn everything around and then turn it back when it’s almost finished.”

Q. What techniques define you?

Nestor - Pastel on paper. I discovered it by experimenting, spending money, making mistakes. Blending with cotton, with my fingers, with makeup remover pads… Whatever works. I'm not a purist.

Q. What inspires you?

Nestor - Walking. The night. Music. Calm. I see things all the time, but it takes me a while to materialize them because of lack of time. My mind works faster than my hands.

Q. What does the night mean to you?

Nestor - It's my other world. Silence, music, concentration. When I look at the clock and it's four o'clock… I think: 'okay, time to sleep'. But I'm a night owl. It's my best time.

(If you want to see the full interview, don't miss TheUNO Voice podcast )

Light, shadow, and a rebellion that wants to stay on Earth

Néstor Reinaldo (Vigo, 1983) considers himself a self-taught, nocturnal artist, obsessed with light and deeply sensitive. He combines traditional techniques with a contemporary vision of portraiture and the object. A man who draws in reverse to avoid falling into the trap of expression. In other words: one of us.

He has experimented with giant murals, pastel on paper, monochrome, and hybrid formats. His sensibility is both contradictory and precise: thorough and eccentric, humble and ambitious, technical and emotional. Above all, he is an observer.

Rather than depicting figures, Néstor reveals presences by drawing the way light touches them. His work is characterized by a search for tension between the human and the symbolic, an exploration that has taken him from urban spaces to collaborations with cultural institutions and independent brands. Each piece he creates carries with it a suspended emotional fragment, a connection.

The collaboration with UNODEUNO began with a question. “Are you sure you want me to participate?” he recalls with a laugh. We were. He wasn’t so sure. And that’s exactly the point: we’re not looking for artists who settle for the status quo. We want creators who contradict themselves, who don’t know if they fit in. Who don’t want to fit in completely.

He confesses that what ultimately convinced him was the treatment of the work. The dignified presentation, the certified digital display, the possibility of someone discovering the artist through a garment, the coherence between art and fashion, the creative freedom. At first, it seemed to him like an immense ship, chaotic yet orderly, like life itself.

“It’s fresh, it’s new. It’s another way of bringing art closer. Someone buys a t-shirt and discovers a story. I love that.”

Néstor explains it with a mixture of humor and sincerity: “The angel wanted to stay here. He liked UNODEUNO’s vibe. That’s why he’s wearing the t-shirt. That’s why he doesn’t fully spread his wings.” He doesn’t take flight. He doesn’t escape. And in that decision lies his rebellion. The work represents a strange balance: divinity brought down to earth, controlled power, rebellion born from calm.

The movement of the fabric, the skin, the wings… everything is designed from the physics of light.

“I didn’t want a lofty angel. I wanted a close one. One that looks down from above, but stays below.”

Technically, it's a work in four parts: the t-shirt and its weight on the body, the undergarment floating in the wind, the delicately treated skin, the wings that blur to the touch. Meticulous, intimate, and above all, deeply emotional. There's no cheap symbolism. It's not spiritual. It's not religious. It's not redemptive. It's an angel weary of the heights, who chooses humanity because he knows that up there it's... cold.

There's a point where Néstor becomes especially honest. He admits that he feels bad about selling every painting he makes. That he'd even cut up the giant mural he recently painted with Marcos Puhinger to take home, if he could. Creating gives him meaning, but parting with it hurts. This contradiction is an essential part of his sensibility, and also a natural bridge to the philosophy of UNODEUNO: the idea that the works have life, movement, a journey.

The choice of the UNO Crop Top by UNODEUNO wasn't an aesthetic gesture or a simple nod to the brand: it was a structural decision. In his view, this garment doesn't function as an accessory, but as an element that extends the character's anatomy and interacts with the light in the painting. The top fits his work because it doesn't compete with the figure, but rather complements it; because its drape, its rigidity, and its shape allow the shadow to unfold precisely where he needs to convey volume. For Néstor, this top doesn't "dress" the angel; it situates him. It makes him earthly. It anchors him to our world naturally. It was the garment that completed the gesture of remaining here below.

Néstor doesn't talk about himself as a genius, nor as an enlightened being. He speaks as someone who wants to understand, learn, try, make mistakes, and continue creating.

Perhaps that's why it fits with UNODEUNO: because we both believe in the intimate gesture, in the story behind the piece, and in the idea that art and fashion—like light—become real when they touch something in others.

Sources

• TheUNO Voice Podcast with Néstor Reinaldo.
• Official biography and career: