Morning sun

From Fernando Valiño's Afterword: Many of the works collected here and selected by their author, Javi Kaos (Valladolid, 1964), have been used in the calendar that Impresiones Deleznables has published every year since 1990, featuring personalized dedications—the 2025 calendar dedicated to the thistle. Javi's calendar is one of his personal contributions that punctually announces the changing of the year: "Christmas sucks. Long live BolinquiDad! And good weather." Some of these illustrations have been used to print countless t-shirts, like the iconic "cagüen" (a vulgar expression meaning "damn it"). Others have found new life as paintings, such as the one titled "No to War as a Business," which hangs on the walls of the Morgan, the author's second home. It's a panel, without a frame or stretcher, because, as its creator explains, he hesitates when defining himself as an illustrator, draftsman, painter, or artist... and after a pause says, "It doesn't matter. I don't know." Another pause is broken before he finally settles on "draftsman." For him, as he states in this publication, "Art and culture are part of the human condition; we are not merely spectators. We are protagonists." Anonymous protagonists, yet with faces, whom Javi Kaos has gathered and drawn for local posterity with simple yet precise features, more than enough to make them recognizable to everyone. This demonstrates his profound knowledge of models and his mastery in portraying his friends on Las Moreras beach on a Midsummer's Eve, or at the entrance to La Bici, which he renames on the awning of the facade as: "We're still standing," next to a five-pointed star.