ROIG DE DIEGO’S academic background is related to the world of Publicity and Communication. He is therefore a vocational artist, vitally Pop.
ROIG DE DIEGO is unequivocally Pop although he is too complex to circumscribe it to a mere three lettered movement. Jaime himself is more “polyhedronic” than would at first appear and his affiliation with “pop culture” is in fact just one of his many facets.

In his early twenties, while his friends would be discussing politics, after university, he’d be talking to them about Andy Warhol. “They thought I was frivolous, telling them about a guy in a white wig” The fact is that Roig de Diego has never painted like Warhol. I think the fascination stemmed from the fact that AW was breaking away from the concept of the damned artist, he came from the world of publicity, he applied technology in an artistic manner and gave emphasis to the media, things that Roig de Diego has always done. Perhaps one could say that RdD is more surrealist than pop. In fact he defines himself as a pop-surrealist.

An artist elaborates his production in a similar manner to a refinery, purifying all the components used (books read, life’s experiences, kisses received and tears shed…..). Roig de Diego has an inner universe with a number of plateaux from which he derives a rich, evocative and certainly brilliant art. In his work he uses a language in which publicity icons, religious images, references to the classics of art and literature, glimpses of “popular culture, harmonise together. All this with his very own personal stamp and a grammatical gesture derived from his Spanish roots, resulting in an internationally visual painting.

In his series RdD shows his passion for the human being especially the female face. -They often ask me,”How are your girls?” And the truth is I’ve almost always painted girls, they’re better story tellers, more expressive, with more to tell…..

“Facial Arguments”, “Convulsive girls”, “Lost in Paradise” traditional characters or mysterious beings, but all reflections of the discomforts, anxieties and fears more or less hidden in the cotemporary human being. Though, despite the depth, the plot of his work, RdD seems never to want to embitter his viewer, always offering a happy and colourful appearance, so much so that Antonio Novo writes, for the prologue to the “LORCA” series : “If Lorca was the creator of the metaphoric undercurrent of the dark side of Spain, you are the artist who draws, paints Spain in all its colours, has fun with it and parades it around the world. Your painting is like an everlasting springtime”.

And, effectively, after the lengthened shadow of Andy, and among the tangled shadows of zoomorphic elements and strange forms (genitals?), we can envisage a Picasso bullfighting with Dominguin’s cape, a Dalí snorkelling in Cadaqués, a Buñuel cutting a sheep’s eye and a Frederico (Lorca) merrily playing a piano.

Because parents inevitably die, but one continues to dream (or paint) for, with, against and through them

One last bit of advice. When you look at Roig de Diego’s work, like a good dance student, let your self be led.