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Puertollano, Spain 1966

In 1981 he began working as an assistant in the studio of the photographer Fernando Gordillo (Madrid, 1933-2015), a leading figure of the Madrid School, a movement responsible for the renewal of Spanish photography in the second half of the 20th century. Together with Gordillo. At the same time he studied graphic design.

In 1998 he began working at Cromotex, a pioneering company in the use of digital tools in the publishing sector in Spain, where he remained until 2012 as the head of the set.

In 2001 he travelled to Mexico, where he took the photographs that would lead to his first book, VeintedíasMéxico.

Alongside his personal projects, Maquieira has been commissioned as a photographer to document the activities of museums and reproduce art collections, a task that has allowed him to get close to the works and exhibition spaces in the absence of the public. Combining this commissioned work with his personal artistic interests, in 2004 he received a grant from the Diputación de Granada to exhibit his series Sobre la Alhambra at the Palacio de los Condes de Gabia, which resulted in a new book. The series was also exhibited at the Bienal Internacional de Fotografía de Tenerife in 2005. In the same year he began to work in a similar field: natural history museums, where he photographed stuffed animals that seemed to come to life; the result was the series Ánima, which was exhibited in 2006 at the Casa de Velázquez in Madrid, in 2007 at the Fotoencuentros festival in Murcia and in 2008 at the Degroof Foundation – Parc du Château de Bousval (Belgium), the Getxophoto International Photography Festival in Getxo (Vizcaya) and the Resolution Gallery in Johannesburg (South Africa). As a result of his work documenting works in the Prado Museum, specifically those belonging to the collection known as the ‘Prado disperso’. He carried out several photographic sessions in different monasteries, which led him to conceive a new series related to the different forms of faith as an invisible concept and its representation. A trip to Iran in 2007 and a residency at the Spanish Academy in Rome in 2008-2009 enabled him to complete the series Faith, a project that was presented at the International Photography Festival in Rome in 2009.

From 2010 to 2018, he worked on the series Night Guide Museums, in which he spent his nights photographing more than fifty international museums. Part of this work was exhibited in 2014 at the M. Gallery Museum in Kaunas, Lithuania, as part of the Kaunas Photo International Photography Festival, where he had received a residency grant the previous year. In June 2017, the book Nocturna was published, and from June to September the work was exhibited at the Sala Principal de Tabacalera Promoción del Arte in Madrid, under the title Guía nocturna de museos, as part of the PhotoEspaña 2017 festival.

From April to June 2018, the Crypt of the Palace of Charles V in the Alhambra hosted the exhibition Ciudad Nocturna, a monograph of photographs taken during several nights in the Alhambra.

In December 2018, Alucinosis was published, a book that reveals the journey of slides from his archive that had been forgotten in a basement for years. The humidity had created an ecosystem of micro-organisms that colonised and decomposed the photographic emulsion. In June 2019, an installation from this series was presented at the Revela-T festival of contemporary analogue photography. In Vilassar de Dalt (Barcelona).

In 2019, he travelled to the Hyundai shipyard in Ulsan (South Korea) to photograph the construction of the Clipper Wilma, a large gas tanker. This was a commission with full artistic freedom for the publication of a new book in June 2020. A photograph from this series was selected for the 10th edition of the Pilar Citoler.

In 2024, he published Una historia minúscula, a photo story about ants in which he combines text and image, with RM.

From 2016 to 2025 he worked on the series La Isla de la Esquina, in which he explores the relationship between architecture and nature on La Palma. The work focuses on several themes, divided into series: the origins of the island and the adaptation of man to the successive volcanoes, from the Benahoarites, its original inhabitants, to the current inhabitants; the climate and its particular nature for building their habitat; the materials of the island and the forms of a domestic architecture in an angular geography of great unevenness. The ornamental design of the traditional dwelling, mostly made up of colourful geometric patterns painted by the islanders in the old style, creates a sense of community and is at the same time a living archaeology that tells us about the European colonial origin. It coexists with the black of the ash and the malpais, traces of the fire of the lava flows