Street Artist in the Spotlight: Ruben Sánchez
Madrid-born Ruben Sánchez, also known as Zoonchez, is a self-taught Spanish artist whose distinctive visual language grew from the graffiti and skateboarding cultures of the 1990s. Now based in Barcelona, his work combines geometry, abstraction, Cubist influence and Mediterranean colour, creating compositions filled with fragmented figures, plants, objects and movement.
Across murals, paintings, sculpture and installations, Sánchez balances bold colour with a recurring interest in the fragility of everyday life. Figures lean, vessels tip and forms collide, creating scenes that appear playful at first glance but often hover between order and disruption.
Ruben Sánchez, street-art mural, Brooklyn, New York City, 2016. Photo © Luis Lucas.
From Graffiti and Skate Culture to International Murals
Graffiti and skateboarding gave Sánchez an early understanding of the city as a place for movement, experimentation and visual communication. His experience in illustration, graphic design and animation later helped shape the strong outlines, angular forms and carefully constructed compositions that remain central to his work.
A significant chapter came through a residency with Tashkeel in Dubai, where he experimented with reclaimed materials and public painting while absorbing a very different architectural and cultural environment. During this period, Sánchez created what he described as the first street-art mural painted on a building in Dubai without commercial branding.
His practice has since travelled internationally, with murals and projects appearing across New York, Miami, London, Istanbul, Dubai and beyond.
Ruben Sánchez, Brooklyn, New York City, 2016. Photo © Luis Lucas.
Colour, Geometry and Everyday Life
Sánchez’s work is immediately recognisable through its interlocking shapes, vivid palette and fragmented human forms. His compositions often combine figures with plants, furniture, vessels and other familiar objects, creating scenes that feel both domestic and surreal.
A fallen vase, a bending plant or a body caught mid-motion can introduce a sense of instability beneath the colour. This balance between energy and fragility has become one of the defining qualities of his work, allowing humour, tension and observation to coexist within the same composition.
Art as Social Dialogue
Alongside his international mural practice, Sánchez has used public art within community and humanitarian projects, particularly through his work with aptART.
In Rusaifa, Jordan, he worked with local young people on the OPEN SPACE project, using workshops and mural painting to encourage conversations around gender equality. His mural depicted a woman physically pushing against the walls surrounding her home, transforming the architecture itself into a metaphor for social boundaries.
In Lesbos in 2019, Sánchez worked with aptART and Médecins Sans Frontières near Moria Camp. Children took part in creative workshops, produced stencils inspired by their experiences and helped transform medical containers and surrounding structures through colour and storytelling.
Ruben Sánchez with aptART, Moria Camp, Lesbos, 2019. Photo © Samantha Robison / aptART.
Related Reading: Ruben Sánchez
In Interview with Ruben Sanchez about his wall in Jordan for OPEN SPACE, Sánchez discusses Pushing Boundaries, his collaboration with young people in Rusaifa and the role public art can play in opening conversations around gender inequality.
GraffitiStreet’s wider coverage of OPEN SPACE Jordan follows the project across multiple locations, bringing international and Jordanian artists together with local communities.
In Street Artist Ruben Sanchez Hits the Streets of New York City, we followed Sánchez to Brooklyn, where his geometric figures and Mediterranean palette transformed the surrounding urban architecture.
Ruben Sanchez’s Latest Mural Revives the Lost Art of Caring documents his 2019 work with aptART and Médecins Sans Frontières near Moria Camp, placing the creativity and experiences of displaced children at the centre of the project.
Sánchez also featured in GraffitiStreet’s Underground 2016 exhibition in London and later returned to our programme for Concrete & Colour in Chichester 2025.
Ruben Sanchez – Horse Pushing Vase (2025). Available via GraffitiStreet.
More Artists in the Spotlight
For another artist combining Cubist influence, colour and fragmented human forms, explore Hunto, whose interlocking figures examine relationships and human connection. Discover PichiAvo for another Spanish practice rooted in graffiti but shaped by a dialogue with art history, or Enivo, whose colourful São Paulo practice similarly moves between monumental public walls and contemporary studio painting.
Discover Ruben Sánchez at GraffitiStreet
GraffitiStreet has worked with and documented Ruben Sánchez for more than a decade, following his practice across murals, exhibitions and studio works.
Ruben Sanchez – The Weight of Present V (2025). Available via GraffitiStreet.
Explore Ruben Sánchez at GraffitiStreet to discover currently available works, or contact GraffitiStreet for acquisitions, sourcing, mural enquiries and private viewings.
Visit GraffitiStreet Gallery, 25A West Street, Chichester, West Sussex, England PO19 1QW.