At Work With: Gabriel Escámez

“I make things, I’m doing things—that’s all there is to it.”  The Barcelona-based art director and interior designer Gabriel Escámez is explaining his work as the head of Cobalto Studio, the multidisciplinary creative agency that he founded in 2015. Escámez is certainly a creative force, turning his hand to photography, art direction, various forms of design and editing, but there might be a little more to his endeavors than he makes out.

In addition to Cobalto Studio, which provides interior design, art direction and set design for high-end clients, there is La Cobalta—which Escámez describes as “the soul of Cobalto”—a brand that produces objects, ceramics, lighting and books inspired by the culture of the Mediterranean. There is also the Cobalto Archive, a collection of over 2,000 pieces of modern and contemporary furniture that are available to rent. And Escámez is in the process of creating another website for all the projects that don’t fit into Cobalto or La Cobalta. 

Tying it all together, he says, is a common thread of authenticity and tradition: “I can’t do anything if there’s no substance—if I can’t look at the cultural baggage of a given thing and project something contemporary onto it.”

It’s an approach that has defined Cobalto Studio’s ad campaigns for Nina Ricci and set design for Loewe; the styling for photo shoots in various editions of Vogue and the boutique stores designed for French brand Sessùn. Meanwhile, with the products he curates for La Cobalta, Escámez pursues an ongoing “cultural investigation” into rapidly disappearing rites and craftsmanship of the Mediterranean, such as with a series of earthenware plates painted by Spanish artist Marria Pratts.

La Cobalta is also where some of Escámez’s passion projects see the light of day, such as Balearics, a series of books published in 2021 that explore the art, food and folklore of the Balearic Islands (Majorca, Minorca, Ibiza and Formentera). The project was five years in the making and he sold the books at a loss, but Escámez fondly remembers an exhausting shooting schedule and “the magic of all these insane stories.”

“What resonates with me is seeing what makes us unique, but then also what we share around the Mediterranean basin,” he says. It’s an interest that is central to his work—the name “Cobalto” derives from the cobalt-blue pigment that has been used traditionally to paint doors and shutters across the Mediterranean.

As a child, Escámez created and photographed still lifes, and his father, an industrial engineer, taught him to build mechanisms and maquettes to play with. Later, he studied fine art before switching to interior design at the Deià School of Art and Design in Barcelona. But the experience with fine art contributed to his holistic vision of creativity. “Sketching, designing a chair or imagining a three-story space, it’s all the same to me,” he says. “I never saw the difference, and everything feels the same because my approach remains the same.”

Escámez’s work draws heavily from Catalan rationalist architecture, which put simplicity and functionality at the heart of design. He regrets that the popularity of the new Mediterranean style of interiors has deprived them of their meaning. “I see some people that just take the aesthetic and there’s no functionality, they just use the same three materials over and over again without understanding what it’s about. It reminds me of what happens with Nordic style, which has also been so poorly interpreted,” he says.

Even if he is known for using a sober, neutral palette—earthy tones and natural materials set against white backgrounds—Escámez considers humor and irony essential to his work. This is apparent in the design of Madrid’s trendiest cheese shop, Formaje, where giant wheels of cheese are elevated to the status of sculptures in a pared-back interior of granite and dark wood. The kitsch of the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 is also an important reference for Escámez, who remembers watching the event as a child; his friends still give him toy figurines of Cobi, the Cubist-style mascot (he appreciates the idea but tells me with a laugh that he has enough).

When we speak, Escámez is spending the summer at his country house in southern Catalonia—a welcome respite from city life. The last year was hectic, he tells me, and put many things into perspective. Cobalto Studio moved into a 10,700-square-foot space in 2022, where they can now fit their archive and equipment. “I used to live right next to work, but now I’m really thankful that I have to walk 20 minutes to get there,” he says. “It gives me space to rest, to observe the city every morning. Occasionally I even sit on a swing I walk by every day.”

In his personal life, grieving several family members who recently passed away at a young age was a wake-up call, he tells me, and led him to distance himself from certain jobs. “There are some projects in set design and art direction that I’m going to try not to take on anymore. Some clients come to you with one specific result in mind, and that’s all they want,” he says. “I don’t want to take on projects that don’t nurture me. I just want to do whatever feels right to me, what makes me feel at peace.”   

La Cobalta is currently working on a clothing line inspired by traditional Mediterranean garments. The idea, Escámez explains, is to create “neo-rites”—invented traditions that become real over time. He speaks about Cara, Cobalto’s take on the traditional cabezudo, an oversized ceramic head worn during folkloric processions, which simultaneously looks backward and forward: “Toward the future and back to our cultural heritage; I think that’s the best way to describe our focus with Cobalto and La Cobalta.”

Escámez may tell me self-deprecatingly that he’s just “doing things,” but he knows where he’s going, and where he’s come from.