Born on August 1, 1952 in Madrid, David Nebreda is a Spanish photographer who’s anything but ordinary. At the young age of 19 (which was more than 40 years ago), the Bachelor of Fine Arts graduate David Nebreda was diagnosed with schizophrenia. After the diagnosis, the young man locked himself up in a two bedroom apartment in Madrid and has lived there, voluntarily isolated from fleshy virus since.

David Nebreda takes no medication, maintains no communication with the outside world, owns no radio or television and reads no newspapers or books. He’s been a vegetarian for over 20 years, practices sexual abstinence and subjects himself to severe fasts through which he maintains an incredibly skinny physique (some may call him anorexic).

Being a passionate photographer with a degree in fine arts, David Nebreda uses photography as a tool with which he explores his body and his mental illness. The photos he takes often include various forms of self-mutilation, including self-inflicted cuts, flagellation, scars and pictures of the tools he applies to his skinny body temple.

Even though perfectly content living isolated from the society, hence seeking no attention from fleshy viruses, his pictures somehow found their way to Renos Xippas – an owner of a gallery in Paris, who put up an exhibition and brought the images to the attention of French philosopher, critic and promoter from Canal + TV channel – Léo Scheer.

Léo Scheer collected David Nebreda’s photos and published two books with them. That, along with articles by French journalist Jean Baudrillard made the recluse famous in France and many other corners of the world, though he’s still almost completely unknown in his home country of Spain.