FOLK FANTASY
Sergio Mora

Antidotes for After the Collapse

Folk Fantasy can be understood as a collection of symbolic signals.
Images that do not fully belong to the present.

Scenes that seem to remember something that has not happened yet.
Drawing from the visual language of folk traditions, ex-votos, science
fiction, pop culture and devotional imagery, these paintings function
as contemporary ritual objects: fragments of emotional orientation
created for uncertain times.

The works do not celebrate miracles.
They acknowledge survival.

Each painting operates like a small symbolic device, carrying phrases
that function less as messages than as inscriptions: brief acts of
language designed to protect fragility, sustain wonder and resist
emotional collapse.

In these imagined landscapes, cowboys, robots, saints, musicians,
smiling creatures and cosmic symbols coexist without hierarchy.
Humor and tenderness become survival technologies. Fantasy
becomes a way of thinking rather than escaping.

The cobalt blue palette reinforces the sensation that these pieces
belong to another time: found objects, devotional artifacts or future
relics recovered from a civilization still trying to remain human.
Rather than describing a world, Folk Fantasy rehearses one.

Not a perfect future.
A possible one.

Born in Barcelona in 1975, Sergio Mora —also known as Magicomora— is a multidisciplinary artist who has woven a visual universe where surrealism intertwines with pop culture, mythology, and an overflowing imagination. Trained at the Escola Llotja in Barcelona, his work challenges the boundaries between the highbrow and the popular, the classical and the contemporary, the dreamlike and the everyday.
His style, described as “pop magical realism,” manifests in paintings, murals, illustrations, ceramics, and comics that inhabit their own world: Moraland. In this visual realm, luchadores, astronauts, ancient gods, and cartoon characters coexist in scenes that swing between humor, sensuality, and cultural critique.
Over the course of his career, Mora has collaborated with renowned figures such as chef José Andrés and designer Philippe Starck, creating murals for restaurants like Bazaar Mar in Miami and Cleo in New York—venues awarded with international design prizes. In 2016, his work was recognized with a Latin Grammy for Best Packaging Design for the album El poeta Halley by Love of Lesbian.
Beyond the gastronomic and musical spheres, he has written and illustrated books such as El Niño Rock, Las legendarias aventuras de Chiquito, La chica de Serie-B, among others, and has exhibited his work in cities such as Barcelona, Milan, Paris, Rome, Miami, New York, and Mexico City.
Critics have praised his ability to merge the fantastic with the mundane. The newspaper El Mundo described him as a representative of “magical surrealism,” while El País dubbed him “the patriarch of Spanish pop surrealism.”
Sergio Mora continues to explore new artistic frontiers, bringing his unique vision to projects that span exhibitions, books, installations, and collaborations with brands such as Gucci—always with the intention of inviting the viewer to dream and question reality. He currently lives and works in Madrid.

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Sergio Mora | The World Opens When You Do