Candy Bassas: Painting the Pulse Between Silence and Sound

Candy Bassas: Contemporary Figurative Painting Between Barcelona and Berlin

The water looks toxic. That is the point.

Candy Bassas paints pools that don’t soothe but signal, figures caught between solace and threat.

Candy Bassas paints water not as escape, but as a warning glowing in the dark.

Based in Berlin since 2019, she builds a practice across painting, printmaking, writing, and music, each medium feeding the same restlessness.

Her recent shows include the duo exhibition “El jardín” at Un Lugar by Oscar Manrique, Madrid, and the group exhibition “Addendum” at Wasserspeicher Prenzlauerberg, Berlin; recent grants include Dorothea Konwiarz Stiftung ’24 and Musicboard Berlin scholarship ’24.

Candy Bassas, Uncertain sense of liberty, oil on canvas, figurative nocturne with luminous green water, Berlin 2024. — **Candy Bassas:** *Uncertain sense of liberty I* | Oil on canvas, 230 × 130 cm. | Finalist at the 14th edition of the Prisma Art Prize, Bassas receives an honorable mention for this project. Image courtesy of the artist.

**Candy Bassas:** On the left: *Seeking Nature II* and on the right: *Seeking nature*, 2025, 70x100 cm Oil monotype print. Images courtesy of the artist.

**Candy Bassas:** On left: *Uncertain sense of liberty II,* 2024 and on the right: *Uncertain sense of liberty VII*, 2024. Image courtesy of the artist.

Candy Bassas, painting in progress, Berlin studio view, canvas on table with brushes and oil palette. — **Candy Bassas:** Studio process, oil on canva, a landscape in progress. Image courtesy of the artist

Barcelona Roots, Berlin Restlessness

Candy Bassas was born in Barcelona, where she studied illustration and costume design at Pau Gargallo School before moving to Berlin.

Candy Bassas, Gardiniens, 2025, oil, acrylic and ink on canvas, figurative female figure against cosmic night sky, Berlin artist. — **Candy Bassas:** *Gardiniens*, 2025 | Oil, acrylic and ink on canvas | 90x100 cm. Image courtesy of the artist

Bassas has been part of the city’s independent art scene, receiving the Dorothea Konwiarz Stiftung 2023/24 grant and presenting works across small but vital galleries.

Candy Bassas, making of, two small nocturnal canvases with figures emerging from dark green foliage, Berlin studio process. — **Candy Bassas:** Exhibition view. Image courtesy of the artist

Candy Bassas, Seeking nature II, 2025, oil monotype print, blue-toned figurative landscape with tree and water, contemporary painting — **Candy Bassas:** Studio view, two small figurative nocturnes in progress | Oil on canvas. Image courtesy of the artist

Berlin gave her a space where painting could expand into cyanotype, print, and performance.

**Candy Bassas:** On the left: *Seeking nature IV,* 2025, 70x100 cm. Oil monotype print and on the right: *Seeking Nature III*, 2025, Oil montype print, 70x100cm. Images courtesy of the artist

Candy Bassas, Water lilies, 2025, oil and ink on canvas, female figure bending toward flowers in nocturnal water, figurative art Berlin. — **Candy Bassas:** *Seeking nature II*, 2025 | 70x100 cm | Oil monotype print. Image courtesy of the artist

Night Pools, Toxic Greens

Bassas’ recurring subject is the figure in water.

Candy Bassas, oil on canvas figurative work with nocturnal colors — **Candy Bassas:** *Water Lillies*, 2025 | 70x100cm | Oil and ink on canvas. Image courtesy of the artist

Candy Bassas, exhibition view, Berlin, oil on canvas figurative work with nocturnal water alongside abstract green painting. — **Candy Bassas:** Exhibition view. Image courtesy of the artist.

But unlike the sunlit bathers of art history, her scenes glow in unnatural green.

Oil and ink bleed into each other, cyanotype shadows drift across the surface, creating a liquid ambiguity.

Candy Bassas, Mimosa, 2025, oil, acrylic and ink on canvas, female figure surrounded by yellow blossoms, contemporary figurative painting. — **Candy Bassas:** *Mimosa*, 2025 | 90x100 cm | Oil, acrylic and ink on canvas. Image courtesy of the artist

candy bassas artist munchies studio visit — **Candy Bassas:** studio view. Image courtesy of the artist

Works like Landscapes at night – Let me bleed in peace or Hunting for love read as both dream and omen.

These figures don’t pose, they listen.

Candy Bassas, Uncertain sense of liberty IV, 2024, oil on canvas, solitary figure in pink and green nocturnal water, Berlin contemporary — **Candy Bassas:** *Uncertain sense of liberty IV*, 2024. Image courtesy of the artist

Echoes That Refuse Comfort

The lineage of bathers is well worn: Gauguin’s tropics, Hockney’s pools.
Bassas cites both but bends them.

**Candy Bassas:** On the left: *Landscapes at night - your treasures I*, 2025, 24x32 cm Oil, acrylic and ink on jute and on the **right**: *Landscapes at night - your treasures I*, 2025, 60x80 cm Oil, acrylic and ink on jute

**Candy Bassas:** On the **left:** *Landscapes at night - let me bleed in peace*, 2025, 120x170cm Oil, acrylic and ink on canvas and on the **right**: *Landscapes at night - go aways*, 2025, 60x80 cm Oil, acrylic and ink on jute. Images courtesy of the artist

If Gauguin idealized and Hockney stylized, Bassas destabilizes.
She keeps the figure, keeps the water, but tilts them into nocturne, into liturgy.

Her pools are less paradise than ritual, less leisure than vigilance.

Candy Bassas, detail oil painting in blue tones — **Candy Bassas:** Detail of an artwork in the making. Image courtesy of the artist

Surfaces That Breathe

Oil and ink on canvas, cyanotype on jute, materials that feel alive, like skin absorbing and releasing memory.

candy bassas painting work in progress artist studio — **Candy Bassas:** Exhibition view from **Prenzlauerberg Wasserspeicher**. Images courtesy of the artist.

Candy Bassas: Berlin-based contemporary painter, figurative composition in blue and white with outlined nude figures and abstract foliage, cyanotype-inspired atmosphere, 2025. — **Candy Bassas:** *Lanscapes at night-Humming*,2025 | Charcoal, acrylic and oil stick on cnavas with cyanotype | 160x180cm. Image courtesy of the artist.

Her process leaves visible traces: layers that hold back light, pigment that stains rather than coats.

Surfaces breathe, just as her subjects seem to inhale the atmosphere around them.

Candy Bassas: Berlin-based contemporary painter — **Candy Bassas:** *Seeking Nature*, 2023. Image courtesy of the artist.

Between Easel and Amplifier

Bassas is also vocalist and guitarist in the Berlin/Barcelona band Pretty Average.

The crossover matters: rhythm, repetition, refrain.

**Candy Bassas:** Work in progress and on the right: Exhibition view. Images courtesy of the artist

Her paintings echo the structure of a song, the way a chorus returns slightly altered each time.

The work doesn’t separate image from sound; it thrives in the feedback loop.

Candy Bassas: portrait of the artist, Berlin-based contemporary painter — **Candy Bassas:** Portrait of the artist in front of her artworks presented at **Un lugar by Óscar Manrique**. Image courtesy of the artist.

Why This Work Matters Now

Candy Bassas captures the atmosphere of the present: restlessness, ecological unease, and the fragile balance between escape and entrapment.

candy bassas Barcelona vienna based artist — **Candy Bassas**: Contemporary painter in Berlin shaping green-lit nocturnes where paradise pauses and vigilance begins. Remember the name. Image courtesy of the artist

Her nocturnal greens are not just aesthetic but diagnostic, registering what it feels like to live in uncertain times.

Stay close: Follow Candy Bassas on Instagram and her band Pretty Average. Coming up: the Ghost Palace Records album release, the Affordable Art Fair Stockholm, and a solo at Galerie Mellies. All worth marking in your calendar.