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One always has to return to realize what he has left behind, to soak up the imagery of a place that he once seemed to know.

Cristóbal Balenciaga, showed us through his work, that moving away from home is how you learn to embrace one’s origins. After all, it was in Paris that he reflected in his collections what he absorbed from those dark-era paintings of the Spanish baroque of Zurbarán, Goya or Velázquez.

Palomo is another great example, he always comes back because he is able to apprehend the essence of his land, extrapolating elements such as those polka dots or ruffles of the gowns that the great spanish divas wore, to the international catwalk .

On this occasion, who is returning is the photographer Carlos Darder, after a brief stay in what will now be his home, New York. It is a fleeting, but very significant, return that somehow reminds the poet in New York by Federico García Lorca.

Carlos does not return alone, but he does it by the hand of Luke Abby, his muse and partner. A consolidated British photographer resident in the big apple who invited him to trust him and embark on the American dream, and since then the projects in common have not ceased. They tell us about exhibitions, books and other works where we will witness their creative affinity.

The photographer describes his return as a rehabilitation process. Spain has become a raft to digest the frenetic pace of the big city. There is, therefore, an involuntary relief in the tone of these images made at the Madrid Retreat days after they arrived home. It seems that his land has returned a candid look opposite to the irreverence and the impudence that flood his usual photograph.

The protagonists of these images, have not been chosen at random, an emotional bond joins them. Darder is generally reluctant to use agency models as he seeks to capture the complicity of those he photographs. In this way, it is his closest friends who become his allies, and that is when the magic arises.

We see Alex Sobrón, a versatile young creative with a presence in the fashion world. That at an early age he has a long professional career: From jewelry design to DJing in various cities. Together with him, Marta González, a multidisciplinary artist who, through illustration and writing, has an extremely introspective work.

The melancholy of these images is undeniable, we see it clearly reflected both in the face of the prostagonists and in the landscape that surrounds them. It seems that even the park itself is infected with this feeling and tells it through its muted colors that scream autumn.

Clothes play as another pictorial element. That prevails as one more character, claiming his presence at the stroke of feathers, silks and polka dots.