Bernal describes his process as “digital photographic intervention,” merging his background in painting with his passion for photography to craft hybrid images where the sky and built world share equal compositional weight.
His work often pays tribute to Vincent van Gogh, not by imitation but by channeling the emotional intensity and expressive movement of his skies into modern urban scenes.
Who is Cizza Bernal?
Bernal started out painting oil replicas of Impressionist works before picking up a camera. As he put it, the years of painting had already taught him composition, so photography came naturally. But photography alone wasn’t enough. “It was as if magically I already knew how to take photos thanks to painting, but photography wasn’t enough to express myself,” he explained. That tension led him to develop what he calls “digital photographic intervention.“
The results are hard to categorize neatly. His images are photographs, but the skies above the city’s buildings churn and spiral the way they do in The Starry Night. The architecture stays grounded and real while everything above it moves. It’s a combination that works better than it has any right to.
His recurring subjects include the Palacio de Bellas Artes, the Torre Latinoamericana, and the glass towers of the modern city skyline. “Every time I go out to take another photo, it’s as if it were a new place,” he says. “The light, the weather, the scene, and the motivation always change, and that’s what makes it such a magical place.”
What makes the work click
The Van Gogh influence is obvious, and Bernal doesn’t shy away from it. “Absolutely everything about Van Gogh inspires me,” he says. “The strength of his strokes, mainly in his skies. I think that creating these works inspired by him is my way of paying tribute to who he was and continues to be.” What keeps it from feeling derivative is that the city itself is doing real work in the images. The colonial facades, the concrete overpasses, the monument to the revolution — all of it gets stranger and more interesting with that painted sky pressing down on it.
His background in traditional painting gives the digital work a texture that a lot of city photography lacks. The skies don’t look like filters. They look considered.
Talent breakdown (2026)
| Category | Rating | |
|---|---|---|
| Originality | 9.2/10 | |
| Technical execution | 9.0/10 | |
| Emotional impact | 8.8/10 | |
| Cultural relevance | 8.5/10 | |
| Overall | 8.9/10 |
The one area worth watching: most of his work lives on screens and prints. Larger installations or gallery collaborations could open up the work in ways that are hard to predict.
Why it resonates now
Digital art right now is crowded with hyper-polished, technically flawless work that leaves you cold. Bernal’s images have a handmade feeling despite being made digitally. The imperfection is the point. Each piece reads as a specific place at a specific moment, not a generic “city.”
With events like Salón ACME and Mexico City Art Week continuing to raise the city’s profile internationally, artists like Bernal are well positioned. The work travels well visually, which matters when most discovery happens on a phone screen.
If you want to follow along, he posts regularly on Instagram at @cizzabernal and also has prints available through his website.
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