lack-and-white pixelated artwork of Mickey Mouse at the ship’s wheel in the classic Steamboat Willie scene, rendered in a square grid of tonal values.

One Pixel at a Time: MAESTRO’s “LOADING” Series Lands in Washington D.C.

Words by Eric David

Washington D.C., USA

Known for his hyperrealistic, black and white pen drawings, Spanish-born, California-based artist MAESTRO has spent the past three years challenging how we consume and interpret imagery in the digital age. His latest series, LOADING, presents pixelated renditions of classical and pop culture icons, all frozen in a perpetual state of digital limbo. From Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring to Marilyn Monroe, Disney’s Snow White, and the Statue of Liberty, these are images we’ve seen a thousand times, but never quite like this. Rendered as grids of arrested motion—stuck, stuttering, half-formed, and eternally “loading,” as signalled by the artist’s meticulously hand-drawn buffering icons—they poignantly capture the fragmentation and sensory overload of our digitized visual culture.

On view at HOMME Gallery in Washington D.C. through April 24th, 2025, MAESTRO’s debut solo exhibition invites viewers to engage with the work in person. While the drawings resonate powerfully on screens, it’s only when you stand before them—coming in and out of focus as you step closer or pull back—that their full complexity unfolds.

Black and white close-up of the artist holding a pen under his nose like a mustache, with pixelated artworks in the background including “American Gothic.”

Artist portrait.

ramed pixelated portrait of the Mona Lisa leaning against a wall among other art materials in a studio or framing workshop.

Maestro, Loading Mona Lisa. Photography by Maestro.

Two-wall view of the exhibition featuring eye grids and iconic pixelated portraits in wooden frames.

Exhibition view, Loading by Maestro. © Maestro

  • Pixelated black-and-white version of Hokusai’s “The Great Wave” reimagined by Maestro with a loading icon over the central wave.

    Maestro, Loading Great Wave. Photography by Maestro.

  • Pixelated version of Caravaggio’s “Judith Beheading Holofernes” – A black-and-white artwork rendered in a blocky, pixelated style, depicting the dramatic Baroque scene of Judith holding a sword against a dark background.

    Maestro, Loading Caravaggio. Photography by Maestro.

Gallery corner featuring American Gothic and Statue of Liberty pixelated portraits.

Exhibition view, Loading by Maestro at HOMME Gallery, Washington DC, Apr 3 – 24, 2025. Photography by Maestro.

An architect by training, MAESTRO’s signature visual language didn’t emerge from a conventional creative arc but one born from frustration—and, perhaps more fittingly, a cheap phone plan. After immigrating to the U.S. in 2021 in order to advance his architecture career, he found himself staring at endlessly buffering images on his smartphone. Rather than swipe past, he paused. Then he began drawing. And what began as a meditative exercise in pixelation soon evolved into a rigorous artistic practice blending architecture, art history, and cultural critique.

Pixelated version of Grant Wood’s “American Gothic” – A blocky, grayscale reinterpretation of the iconic painting, featuring a man and woman standing in front of a farmhouse.

Maestro, Loading American Gothic. Photography by Maestro.

Black and white photo of an artist seated on a bench, looking up at pixelated portraits of the Mona Lisa and Girl with a Pearl Earring, with a framed pixelated image of Mickey Mouse at his feet.

Artist portrait at a show in a Beverly Hills residence.

Pixelated drawing of “Girl with a Pearl Earring” – A black and white, pixel-style rendering of Vermeer’s famous portrait, composed of square tonal blocks.

Maestro, Loading Pearl Earring. Photography by Maestro.

Corner view of gallery with pixelated Mona Lisa and Girl with a Pearl Earring portraits.

Exhibition view, Loading by Maestro at HOMME Gallery, Washington DC, Apr 3 – 24, 2025. Photography by Maestro.

  • Framed pixelated artworks of eyes and iconic portraits, including the Mona Lisa and Girl with a Pearl Earring, displayed on adjacent white walls in a minimalist gallery setting with exposed concrete floors.

    Exhibition view, Loading by Maestro at HOMME Gallery, Washington DC, Apr 3 – 24, 2025. Photography by Maestro.

  • Stacked display of three pixelated black-and-white portraits of notable male figures on a white wall.

    Exhibition view, Loading by Maestro at HOMME Gallery, Washington DC, Apr 3 – 24, 2025. Photography by Maestro.

  • Pair of square portraits showing pixelated black-and-white images of Donald Trump and Joe Biden, emphasizing a digital, low-resolution aesthetic.

    Maestro, Loading Trump V. Biden. Photography by Maestro.

  • Close-up of framed pixelated eye artworks, with the Statue of Liberty in the background.

    Exhibition view, Loading by Maestro at HOMME Gallery, Washington DC, Apr 3 – 24, 2025. Photography by Maestro.

Framed pixelated portrait of Marilyn Monroe in grayscale, mounted centrally on a white gallery wall.

Exhibition view, Loading by Maestro at HOMME Gallery, Washington DC, Apr 3 – 24, 2025. Photography by Maestro.

Image

Maestro, Loading Marilyn. Photography by Maestro.

Artist working intently on a large-scale pixelated drawing in his studio, wearing headphones and a knit sweater under moody lighting.

Artist portrait working at his studio.

Each piece in the LOADING series is a quiet spectacle of labour. Rendered entirely by hand, a painstaking, time-consuming process, the works are in the artist’s words “an attempt to strip iconic subjects down to their essential architecture by passing them through the filter of a black pen on white paper.” His architectural background lends a sculptural intentionality to his drawings: lines are both delicate and determined, resulting in works that feel almost paradoxical given the digital disarray of his subjects.

This stark simplicity is not just aesthetic—it’s philosophical. In an era of oversaturated, algorithmically optimized imagery, MAESTRO’s minimalism reads like a form of resistance. For all their visual restraint however, these pieces aren’t static. Many of them include augmented reality components—QR codes that usher viewers into shifting digital environments. This interactivity extends MAESTRO’s inquiry into how we perceive and engage with images, begging the question: What does it mean to “know” an image when it’s been pixelated, filtered, repurposed, and looped into cultural infinity?

Making of: Maestro, Loading exhibition at Homme Gallery.

Pixelated close-up of “The Great Wave” artwork by Maestro using a loading symbol at the center.

Maestro, Loading Great Wave (detail). Photography by Maestro.

Installation view showing a grid of pixelated eyes and artworks of Snow White and Mickey Mouse.

Exhibition view, Loading by Maestro at HOMME Gallery, Washington DC, Apr 3 – 24, 2025. Photography by Maestro.

Pixelated black-and-white artwork of Mickey Mouse framed on a white gallery wall.

Exhibition view, Loading by Maestro at HOMME Gallery, Washington DC, Apr 3 – 24, 2025. Photography by Maestro.

  • Pixelated monochrome artwork of Snow White holding a bird, created using a grid-like dot matrix technique that mimics early digital imagery.

    Maestro, Loading Snow White. Photography by Maestro.

  • lack-and-white pixelated artwork of Mickey Mouse at the ship’s wheel in the classic Steamboat Willie scene, rendered in a square grid of tonal values.

    Maestro, Loading Steamboat Willie. Photography by Maestro.

  • Pixelated artwork of a woman with text in the background – A grayscale, abstract image of a woman’s face with partially legible text, mimicking a magazine cover.

    Maestro, Loading Reputation. Photography by Maestro.

  • Detail shot of pixelated grid artwork on textured paper – A close-up view capturing the tactile surface and fine gridlines of a grayscale pixelated artwork on thick, deckled paper.

    Maestro, Gazing Mona (detail). Photography by Maestro.

Pixelated interpretation of the Mona Lisa – A black and white dot drawing of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa rendered in a low-resolution, grid-like effect.

Maestro, Loading Mona Lisa. Photography by Maestro.

Close-up detail of pixelated artwork – A zoomed-in section of a grayscale pixelated face on textured paper, highlighting the hand-drawn dot work.

Maestro, Loading Mona Lisa (detail). Photography by Maestro.

Perhaps the most literal manifestation of this question is Glitching – Venus, MAESTRO’s first foray into sculpture. A resin reinterpretation of the Venus de Milo, the piece transforms classical beauty into a jagged, digital silhouette—frozen mid-buffer. It signals a bold new chapter in the artist’s practice, expanding his visual dialect from two to three dimensions while remaining tethered to the same conceptual nucleus: what is lost and what is revealed when images are filtered through the glitchy veneer of the digital age.

At HOMME Gallery—a D.C. arts space known for championing multimedia innovators—MAESTRO’s work feels right at home. There is a strange serenity to LOADING, as though the perpetual buffering state has become less a failure of technology and more a metaphor for our era: one that is always reaching, but never arrives.

  • Pixelated black sculpture of a classical male figure – A matte black 3D sculpture of a fragmented, blocky human form, evoking digital aesthetics through a pixelated interpretation of classical sculpture.

    Maestro, Glitching Venus. Photography by Maestro.

  • Vertical row of pixelated Venus de Milo figurines mounted on a white wall.

    Pixelated Venus de Milo figurines. Exhibition view, Loading by Maestro at HOMME Gallery, Washington DC, Apr 3 – 24, 2025. Photography by Maestro.

Side perspective of small Venus de Milo-style statues in grayscale arranged vertically on the wall beside pixelated eyes.

Exhibition view, Loading by Maestro at HOMME Gallery, Washington DC, Apr 3 – 24, 2025. Photography by Maestro.

Installation view of framed pixelated eye artworks in a grid on a white wall.

Exhibition view, Loading by Maestro at HOMME Gallery, Washington DC, Apr 3 – 24, 2025. Photography by Maestro.

Wide shot of the exhibition space with both portrait and eye-themed pixelated artworks on adjoining walls.

Exhibition view, Loading by Maestro at HOMME Gallery, Washington DC, Apr 3 – 24, 2025. Photography by Maestro.

Artist depicted multiple times in a parking garage, each figure holding a pixelated grayscale portrait, standing beneath numbered spots.
  • Artist carefully measuring or adjusting paper on a desk, surrounded by grayscale pixelated artworks of iconic portraits in a dimly lit room.

    Artist portrait working at his studio.

  • Artist working intently at a desk, hand-coloring a pixelated portrait, surrounded by framed grayscale artworks including the Mona Lisa and Marilyn Monroe.

    Artist portrait working at his studio.

  • The artist in a striped sweater leaning over a table, focused on his work, with pixelated portrait artworks hanging behind him.

    Artist portrait working at his studio.