Designed to protect tables and usually discarded after a meal, paper placemats rarely aspire to anything more. Yet for years, Barcelona-based illustrator Sebastià Martí (@sebastia.marti y @sebastia.marti.ilustracion) has turned them into a creative outlet while waiting for his food. Today, some of those works are on display—where else?—in a Barcelona restaurant.

Some of the placemats come from García de Pou, which prompted us to speak to the artist about this singular initiative. The exhibition runs until 15 March 2026.

 

Many people doodle on placemats in bars and restaurants, but turning it into art… had anyone done it before? How did the idea come about?
I’m sure someone must have done it, right? It’s impossible that no one has. But I’d never seen it exhibited, and I felt it was long overdue. If I had seen someone else do it, I wouldn’t have gone ahead with it.

The placemat is one of García de Pou’s flagship products: we manufacture them by the million in countless designs. Some of the ones you’ve used are ours. Do you have any preferences when it comes to texture, thickness, or material for the perfect canvas?
Good question. Naturally, it should have a higher grammage — in other words, be thicker — so it can withstand both markers and the occasional dab of paint. It shouldn’t be too heavily coated either. Oh, and it should feature something printed that relates to the restaurant, but not covering more than around 30% of the surface.

 

Would you say it’s the best improvised canvas? And are there any other makeshift surfaces you like to draw on?
It’s the most hedonistic canvas I’ve found: you have a table, a chair, food, drink and, with a bit of luck, a good view or something interesting happening around you. There are always improvised surfaces — beach sand for ephemeral art, river pebbles, a piece of cardboard, a scrap of wood — but without a doubt, one of the best is the placemat.

You incorporate the imperfections and stains of the placemat into your work, but which comes first: the chicken or the egg? Does the stain inspire the idea, or does the drawing end up swallowing the stain?
I’ll be honest: in most cases, the drawing comes first and the stain comes afterwards. Occasionally it’s the other way round, but that’s the exception — a shame, because that version is more romantic.

What inspires you to start a placemat painting?
In that sense, inspiration doesn’t count for much. You have to get something down in the time it takes to eat, while chatting and so on, so the work ends up reflecting your surroundings. If you stopped to think up something creative, you wouldn’t finish a single one.

Why did you choose Fonda Pepa in Barcelona as the exhibition venue?
I was looking for a place with that kind of charm. I didn’t want a designer restaurant — something nice, yes, but warm, unpretentious, and with good food. I also liked that they’d never exhibited anything before; I think the proposal took them by surprise. I like the place, its logo, and eating there. So it felt perfect.

 

What can we expect to see in the works in this exhibition? Is there a common thread running through them?
The common thread is the diners who appear on the placemats, and an inevitable sub-thread is watching my daughters grow up, placemat by placemat.

You mention that most of them were completed in the time it took to eat. Have your companions ever said, “Sebastià, stop now”?
No, they’re patient — though I haven’t lingered after paying the bill either. On two or three occasions, I’ve finished them off calmly back in the studio.

Any anecdotes from drawing in bars and restaurants?
In a restaurant in Corfu, there were no placemats — just a huge tablecloth covering the whole table. So when we’d finished eating, my partner and I hand-cut the area we’d drawn on. As we were leaving, the sight of the waitress looking at the black square we’d left behind struck me as hilarious. Of course, there are owners who’ve wanted to keep them, but they’re usually very polite and just suggest it (laughs).

 

I’ve seen on your website that you interview yourself. Is that a good way of saving on therapy?

It started as a way to avoid giving a pretentious explanation of my career and my work. Although, if I’m honest, interviewing yourself is probably even more pretentious.

In that self-interview, you joke about “closing doors” as an illustrator by not having a single, recognisable style. Are you referring to the very defined style many illustrators become prisoners of just to make a living?
Exactly that! But it’s not a professional choice — it’s a personality trait. I get bored if I do two drawings in the same style in a row, so you can’t really call it a conscious or strategic decision.

Can an illustrator make a name for themselves, live from their work, and still remain free?
You’d have to define what “being free” means. For me, being free would mean producing the work I want full time. From that point of view, I haven’t been. I’ve made a living from illustration all my life without needing to make a name for myself, as you put it — and mind you, it’s not that I didn’t want to (laughs).

Is turning a hobby into a profession the key to everything?
It’s quite ambitious to claim there’s a “key to everything.” I’ve always been a professional illustrator, and although I was doing work I enjoyed, I wasn’t always illustrating what I wanted or how I wanted. It’s only recently that I’ve taken the step to live by producing work to my own taste; and if that succeeds, perhaps it will have been the key to quite a lot.