by Olimpia Bellan

Visionary portraitist Marta Contreras Simó merges technology, fashion, and imagination to create AI-generated images that feel both timeless and surreal. With a meticulous eye for colour, texture, and detail, she transforms digital photography into dreamlike portraits and fantasy worlds, where past and present coexist and individuality shines. Each piece is a delicate balance of precision, playfulness, and imaginative poise, offering moments of extraordinary beauty and quiet wonder.

Your AI-generated images often feature striking, porcelain-skinned figures with surreal, historical touches. What draws you to blending classical elegance with fantastical, contemporary elements?
I’m deeply attracted to classical beauty because of its timelessness and emotional stillness. It feels almost sacred to me, like something that exists beyond trends or eras. By combining it with contemporary and fantastical elements, I can question that sense of permanence and bring it into dialogue with the present. The result is a space where past and future coexist, allowing the image to feel both familiar and unsettling, like a fragment of an invented memory.

Fashion and accessories, like elaborate hats, frequently appear as central motifs in your work. How do these choices help you explore individuality and personality in your AI compositions?
Fashion functions as a visual language in my work. Accessories, especially hats, have the power to radically transform a character’s presence and attitude. They allow me to shape identity without relying on narrative explanations. In my AI compositions, these elements act as extensions of the character’s inner world, revealing confidence, mystery, vulnerability, or strength, while also introducing a sculptural, almost symbolic quality to the image.

Your art merges meticulous realism with subtle surrealism. What inspires the tension between perfection and imaginative freedom in your creative process?
That tension reflects my own way of seeing the world. I’m drawn to control, precision, and realism, but I’m equally interested in what happens when those qualities begin to fracture. Realism creates trust and intimacy with the viewer, while surrealism opens a space for imagination and ambiguity. I like working in that fragile balance, where perfection begins to feel slightly artificial and the image quietly slips into the realm of the unreal.

AI has allowed you to expand beyond traditional photography. How did you first make the leap from capturing reality with a camera to crafting entirely imagined worlds digitally?
Photography taught me how to observe light, composition, and emotional nuance, but over time I felt constrained by physical reality. I wanted to create images that felt emotionally real, even if they couldn’t exist in the world. AI arrived as a natural extension of that desire. Rather than replacing photography, it expanded it, allowing me to build worlds that reflect inner states, imagination, and atmosphere rather than documentation.

Your images feel like glimpses into alternate realities, yet each retains an intimate, human presence. How do you ensure that emotion and character remain at the heart of your digitally generated visions?
I approach each image with the same sensitivity I would bring to a portrait photograph. Before anything else, I think about the character, her mood, her gaze, her emotional weight. Small details are crucial: a subtle expression, a tension in posture, a sense of quiet introspection. Even within digitally constructed worlds, I want the emotional presence to feel honest and recognizable. That human connection is what ultimately grounds the image.

Read Marta Contreras Simó interview on BMI:MAG limited edition, find your copy at @bluemarlinibiza and throughout Ibiza’s hotspots