terreno áspero | rugged terrain

INMA FEMENÍA

*1985, lives and works in Valencia

Inma Femenía received her Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts in 2008, and her Master’s in Arts Productions in 2009-2010, both from the Polytechnic University of Valencia.

Her artistic practice focuses on the process between the object and its visual perception, constantly changing because of the way it is influenced by the digital domain.
She had national solo exhibitions in Alicante, Salamanca, and Murcia, and participated in international exhibitions in London, UK; Berlin, Germany; Turin, Italy; and Birmingham, Alabama; among others. Her work appeared in the Spanish press (DARDO or WRPD Magazine).

SANTIAGO GIRALDA

*1980, lives and works in Madrid

Santiago Giralda graduated with a degree in Fine Art and am MFA in Art, Creation and Research from the University of Madrid.
He also completed a postgraduate course at the Hochschule für bildende Künste, Hamburg.

His work has been exhibited in the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom and Spain. He has shown his paintings at fairs as Arco (Madrid, 2016, 2015, 2014), Art Lima (Lima, 2016), ArtBo (Bogotá, 2015), Expochicago (Chicago, 2013), and he has received numerous distinctions at different events and competitions, including an Art Residency at the Real Academia de España in Rome (2016), the Caja Madrid Generación Award (2014,2008), Circuitos de Artes Plásticas (2012), Tentaciones (2010), the Bancaja Award (2009), Injuve [Spanish Youth Institute] (2008), the BMW Painting Award (2006), and at the 10th Virgen de las Viñas Painting Competition (2011).

Among his most notable solo shows are Dejar hacer a la sombra (Galería Moisés Pérez de Albéniz, 2015); Under Construction (Galería Punto, 2009); Interior-Exterior (Sala de Arte Joven, the venue for young artists run by the Regional Government of Madrid, 2009); and Outsider (Galerie Oel-Früh, Hamburg, Germany, 2007). He has also participated in numerous group exhibitions, including Art Situations (Da2 Salamanca and Museo Patio Herreriano, Valladolid, 2012); the XII Mostra Gas Natural Unión Fenosa (MACUF, La Coruña, 2012); Escala 1:1 (Matadero Madrid, Madrid, 2011); 25 Años de la Muestra de Arte Injuve, (Círculo de Bellas Artes, Madrid, 2010); Bienal Artes Plásticas Fundación María José Jove (La Coruña, 2010); Fernweh / Heimweh (AOL Gebäude, Hamburg, Germany, 2007); and Casa demolida (Hamburg, Germany, 2007); etc.

Santiago Giralda’s work can be found in various private and public art collections, including those of the Spanish Ministry of Culture, Banco Santander, DKV, Caja de Murcia and Caja Madrid. He also belongs to the Madrid Creators’ Archive run by Matadero Madrid and he has received several production grants, including one from the Regional Government of Madrid (2010).

IRENE GRAU

*1986, lives and works in Santiago de Compostela

Irene Grau’s methodology focuses on color as a transforming agent of space, and its perception. A meticulous analysis of an in situ intervention and its transformation through color is quasi-ubiquitous in her work - an approach in the tradition of radical monochromatic painting, as well as mural painting, performative process, and landscape - the latter in a broad sense. The title of her recent doctoral thesis, The Painter on the Road, perfectly sums up her interest and attitude toward the medium of painting, and Irene Grau’s process could perfectly be described as a conceptual plenairist, who states that her work is "what remains" of a wider experience, going far beyond the physically traveled landscape or an explored architectural structure. Solely transmitting an experience may well lack of concrete information, yet her work leaves enough clues to the viewer to allow access through process, intervention, and the document thereof, in order to visually and conceptually understand the artist’s modus operandi and artistic questioning and concerns.

In 2010 she was the recipient of an Academic Excellence Scholarship, followed by a 2011-2015 FPU Fellowship (Training program for Academic Staff) from the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport, allowing her to pursue her doctoral studies.
She received her PhD in Fine Arts from the Polytechnic University of Valencia in 2016.

Grau’s work has been shown nationally and internationally in solo and group exhibitions in Switzerland, Brazil, France, Portugal, Spain and the United States since 2008. Her work is in numerous private and institutional collections in Europe, Asia, and the US.
For her solo exhibition Lo que importaba estaba en la línea, no en el extremo (What mattered was on the line, not at the end), she won the Award for best exhibition project of the Off Festival PhotoEspaña'15 with Ponce+Robles gallery in Madrid, and she has recently been included on Forbes’ list of 30 artists under 30, the Forbes 30 under 30 list in Arts - Europe 2016.

Noteworthy national and international exhibitions include: El curso natural de las cosas at La Casa Encendida (2016); MAP / Manifestation d'Art Public #5 (Cerbère, Francia, 2015); -metría at the Centro de Arte de Alcobendas (Madrid, 2016); ▲ at Maus Contemporary (Birmingham, AL, US); Lo que importaba estaba en la línea, no en el extremo (2015) and Los ojos de las vacas, curated by David Barro, both at la Galería Ponce+Robles, (2014) in Madrid; Idolatria Va at Galeria Laura Marsiaj (Rio de Janeiro, 2013); In medias res at the Ducal Palace of Gandia (2013); and Mutatis mutandis at Galeria Moura Marsiaj (Sao Paulo, Brazil, 2012).

ALEX MARCO

*1986, lives and works in Valencia

Alex Marco began his college career in 2004 at the Polytechnic University of Valencia in the San Carlos Fine Arts Faculty, before moving to the Brera Academy in Milan, Italy in 2008 with a scholarship. During his studies in Milan, and thanks to a BP Portrait Award, he participated in 2008 in a group show at the National Portrait Gallery in London. Between 2008-2013 his work was acquired by different Institutions, museums and private collections around Spain, while participating in various group and solo shows at galleries in Madrid, Valencia, and Barcelona, as well as having a presence at international art fairs in Spain, Belgium, Colombia, and Germany. He concluded his MFA in Painting at the Polytechnic University of Valencia in 2011.

Marco is the recipient of several Awards, such as the Senyera Prize in 2013, the most important Institutional and cultural award in his hometown Valencia.
Noteworthy individual shows at Spanish museums and institutions include the exhibition Paintings at the Palau de Casavells in Gerona in 2013, and the 2014 exhibition Outside referents at Tossal Gallery in Valencia. In 2014, one of his paintings was included in the International Call for Artists exhibition of Luis Adelantado Gallery in Valencia, and he has since been part of the gallery’s artist roster, resulting in a first solo exhibition in 2015, La hora loca de los gatos, in the gallery’s Boiler Room - a recently opened project space.

In the past year, Alex Marco’s work has being acquired by different institutions and international collections, such as the Spain-based DKV collection, and the Pérez Art Museum Miami, PAAM, in Miami, USA.

He is currently working on his first solo exhibition in Latin America, scheduled to open this Winter at Luis Adelantado Gallery’s space in Mexico City.

NICO MUNUERA

*1974, lives and works in Valencia

Nico Munuera moved from Lorca to Valencia in 1993 to study Fine Arts at the Faculty of San Carlos, during which he was was the recipient of several awards. His work has been included in exhibitions at various galleries since 1998, as well as in numerous national and international art fairs.

In 2003 he moved to Paris thanks a scholarship from the College of Spain to continue research on his project - primarily based on color field painting, perception ability, and process. In 2004 he was chosen to collaborate and show with Spanish painter Joan Hernández Pijuan in the Relevos program - a series of three institutional exhibitions in Madrid, Murcia and Barcelona. In 2007 he moved to New York City thanks a grant from the Casa Pintada Foundation to work on a project on Japanese paper, based on color, automatic movement, and gesture. From 2008 to 2012 he lived and worked in Berlin, exploring the ideas of time, limits, and uncertainty. During the same period, he participated in the exhibitions To paint or not to paint at the Museum of Fine Arts in Murcia (2009); and the exhibition Rational Abstraction. Aldrich / Loureiro / Munuera / Uslé at the Galician Center of Contemporary Art, CGAC, in Santiago de Compostela (2011).

His work has been exhibited in several international institutions in Geneva, Switzerland (at the Villa Bernasconi, in 2011); at the now defunct GabarronFoundation - Carriage House Center for the Arts in New York City, NY (2007); and at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, MMOMA, in Moscow, Russia (2011).

Noteworthy exhibitions are Stimmung (2014) at Proyecto Paralelo Gallery, Mexico City; and Frame Time (2014) at Veronicas in Murcia, Spain. Of particular importance for his career are the solo exhibitions No Flags (2008) and Boneless Island (2015), both at Max Estrella Gallery in Madrid, Spain. His work is included in numerous private and institutional collections, such as the prestigious Spanish Foundations, Barrié Foundation and AENA Foundation.