Born in Salamanca (Spain), 1970
1996 - 1997 Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten Amsterdam.
1993 - 1995 Diplomated Autonomous Fine Arts. Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht.
1988 - 1993 Master in Fine Arts. Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Honorific Graduation).

Clothes are like a screen where we project our personality, like a stage for the act of showing up, getting form, identity.

In 1993-1994 I made a series of sculptures in which the human figure was protagonist. I started then to use clothing as main material, for its quality of limit to the body, as skin. I maintained the own structure of the cloth, closed it and filled it with different sorts of stuffing -like sand or clay- so as to restore the human presence.
Such an approach to the body was motivated by my interest in all what concerns the human borders: questions as self-constitution and relation to the surroundings.
After a couple of years I decided to untie myself from the presence of the figure, as I found it a too dominant expressive resource. However, the body did not disappear from my work: it was not represented any more, but became something like a site of experience. I started to explore a new aspect of the notion of limit: rather than as defining border, the skin would function then as field of relation, being agent and element of perception.

My work develops through the sensorial and emotional confrontation with the material. It is a sort of sensual investigation of the neighbouring reality. The skin is the meeting point, the place of contact.
I use ordinary things, mostly objects or materials with a direct relation to the body, such as clothes, soap, hair, dolls…as well as other materials capable of generating an strong physical involvement.
I transform, combine, or simply use and photograph the object, exploring its perceptive qualities, stressing corporal nuances, and adding through my activity a psychical burden to them. I try so to soften the borders between subject and object to engage them in a rather intimate relationship. A complex, ambiguous relation, in which opposite aspects are experienced and not conciliated sensations -like attraction and abjection, identification and strangeness- may arise, making it hard to define the object and fix the distance towards it.

In the object that resembles, supplants, or addresses the body I find a possibility to relate the phenomenology and qualities of the material, to individual attributes and processes. This contamination or even crossing of body and object remains in my recent work: the objects used, carried by, adapted to the body; simultaneously, the body transformed by the objects surrounding it, acting upon its limits.
This sort of interaction brings me to focus more and more in the utilitarian aspects of the object, which define a certain relation to the body. Very often the functionality that I propose is just apparent, a vague notion of use is recalled, the body is involved but its role is not specific. In some cases a particular function can be actually performed, but then it is rather an “antifunctionality”, in the sense that these objects do not convey an answer to a practical problem; perhaps, they may play a role as sensors, or markers of psychical necessities, but without offering an actual solution.
The psychical necessities which I try to convey in these works relate also to the idea of individual limits, as bearers of tensions: the struggle on the surface between inside and outside forces, the tension between flexibility and constraint; the limits as providers of protection and security, but also of dependence. In short, the constant tensions previous to the flux through the limits.

Text by Mónica de Miguel Rubio

1998 Work period European Ceramics Workcentre. 's-Hertogenbosch.
1993 IV Biennial of European Art Academies Maastricht '93. Master class with Richard Deacon.
1993 Cromos y Peonzas. Sculpture workshop with Eva Lootz. Arteleku, San Sebastián (Spain).
1993 I International Forum Live Art. Gstaad (Switzerland).
1991 Seminar for Advanced Studies in Drawing, with Emil Schumacher and Gerard Richter.
1991 Antonio Ratti Foundation, Como (Italy).
1991 Summer Courses. Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

1998 Stipend E.K.W.C. (European Ceramics Workcentre): Studio for young artists.
1997 Stipend Allebé, Rijksakademie.
1996 Stipend Stichting Intendance/vr. v. d. Rijksakademie.
'95-'97/'99-'00 Subsidies Noord-Brabants Fonds voor Beeldende Kunstenaars.
1993 - 1994 U. Complutense: Erasmus interchange with the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht.

2001 Generación 2001. Premios y Becas de Arte Caja Madrid. Honorific prize.

1999 Vitrina: Objetos Periféricos. Frans Halsmuseum, Haarlem.
1998 De Nederlandse Cacaofabriek, Helmond.
1992 Pequeño Formato. Cave Canem Gallery, Madrid.

2001 Generación 2001. Premios y Becas de Arte Caja Madrid. Travelling exhibition.
2000 Jubileumtentoonstelling Kunstvereniging Diepenheim.
2000 Visies op het Culturele Lichaam. Centre voor Vrouwelijke Studies, Universiteit Nujmegen.
2000 Die Holländische Welle. Städtische Museen Jena (D).*
1999 - 2000 XI Circuitos de Artes Plásticas y Fotografía. Comunidad de Madrid. Centro de Arte Joven, Madrid; Galerie Klaus Braun, Stuttgart; Galerie der Künstler, München; Künsttlerwerkstatt Bahnhof Westend, Berlin; Deutsche Welle, Köln; Capilla del Oidor, Alcalá de Henares, Madrid.
1999 Keranova II. Galerie Amphora, Oosterbeek; Galerie Vromans, Amsterdam.
1998 Trapdoor. MK Expositieruimte, Rotterdam.
1998 Niet de Kunstvlaai. Westergasfabriek, Amsterdam (stand Artis).
1998 Neuro-Artonomy. Erasmus Universiteit, Rotterdam.
1998 Niggendijker, Groningen.
1998 Die Holländische Welle. Art Multiple, Kunstmesse Düsseldorf (Stand Galerie Lutz Fiebig);
1998 ArtVent-Kunst, die Ankommt! Galerie Lutz Fiebig, Berlin.*
1998 Object-Reader II. CC de Ster Willebroek, de Rand Brussels, CC de Kortrijkse Schouwburg, CC Strombeek-Bever. Project Clean Houses.*
1997 Salon III. Nieuwe Brabantse Kunst Stichting, Breda.
1997 Object-Reader. Cultuur Centrum Brugge (Belgium).
1997 Cross-Country. Hooghuis, Arnhem.
1997 Open Ateliers. Rijksakademie Amsterdam.
1996 Open Ateliers. Rijksakademie Amsterdam.
1995 Eindexamenexpositie 94/95 HKU Utrecht.
1995 Arco'95, International Art Fair Madrid (stand of the Faculty of Fine Arts).
1995 Salz. I International Biennial of Mailed Art, Bad Saldetfurth (Germany).*
1995 Arte Piccola. Stichting Amazone, Amsterdam.
1995 Stichting Validen voor niet Validen, Schjindel.
1994 Eindexamenexpositie 93/94 HKU Utrecht (guest).
1994 II International Sculpture Symposium, Vejprty (Czech Republic).*
1994 Mailed Art. Uppsala (Sweden).*
1994 Missing. Mail Art event, Stockhausen (Germany).*
1992 Iconografía no Estética. CC Meseta de Orcasitas, Madrid.
1992 Salon der Debutanten, Slagharen.
1992 Agua. Cave Canem Gallery, Madrid.
1992 Bellas Artes 4A. Cultural Centre La Chopera, Madrid.
1991 Hall San Francesco, Como (Italy).
1991 Palace of Congresses and Exhibitions, Madrid.
1990 Arganzuela Prices, Town Hall in Madrid.

(* = in cooperation with John Maters)

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