When I was a child, I won a prestigious children's painting competition in my city, Barcelona (Spain). The contest was a great tribute to our great teacher, universal artist, Joan Miró. At the awards ceremony, the genius told me something that has always accompanied me from then on: -Rafael, I was very surprised by your great imagination, that is the most important thing for a creator. Your talent is in your imagination. Never stop daydreaming. Look within yourself for the simple things, it will be enough for you to be happy as an artist and as a person. Those advice that Miró gave me have accompanied me for the rest of my life and I try to apply them daily in my activity as a painter. I close my eyes, breathe deeply, smile and something appears in my mind that I want to express, then everything is a game of deliberately simple shapes, in a magical figuration in which color and its vital potential are very important. When I create, I also try to be happy. I think that things in life are already complicated. Problems and worries invade us daily, so in the sublime act of creating I want nothing more than to do it from a happy perspective, for myself as a creator and for others as spectators. My worlds are therefore simple and happy, perhaps as a desire for peace, with a lot of hope in harmony, brotherhood, humanity that we sorely need on this desolate planet.

I also try to convey this to my young students at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Barcelona; I insist that they try to express human virtues, positivity and hope in their works. If they do so, they will be happy and will make others happy, because let us not forget that Art has a great transformative power and furthermore, outside of the social sphere, it makes no sense. This individual exhibition that I carried out as a resident guest artist at the Ningbo Museum of Contemporary Art, is titled "Agua", this beautiful word from my language, Spanish, means "Water". Water, the principle of life, motivates me to create this whole gallery of simple and happy situations, like swimmers who dance happily among the fish, fish that want to raise awareness about our commitment to caring for marine life and the oceans, mysterious ships that invite us to travel. , birds that sing in their trees or distant landscapes full of poetry.