Cantabrian artist Cristina del Campo presents her third solo exhibition at Juan Silió Gallery, entitled Voici le Printemps.
Settled in Switzerland since last year, she uses a proverb from the Swiss country, “Voici le printemps, les alouettes reviennent” (Spring has come, the larks return), to bring us closer to her new production Habitat, a series in which she has been working for the last two years.
The artist elaborates on her artistic research about the concepts of fragment and recontextualization, she also goes from the painted collage of previous series to the real one as the main element in the works, thus reaching a more direct image, which is accompanied by drawing and painting. By using paper, small wooden sculptures and alabaster plaster and the gallery wall itself as media, the use of irregular formats that began in her previous exhibition at the gallery in 2017 gains prominence. The careful choice of textures in the images she takes, accentuates the ambiguity between abstraction and figuration that characterizes her work.
The fragment, decontextualized by being selected under detailed approaches and thus isolated from its environment, becomes a new anonymous image closer to abstraction, acquires another identity to later become part of a new fictitious reality, now contextualized in the construction of that new entity.
The proverb of the Romandy Switzerland that gives the exhibition its title, refers to the condition of the seasonal worker. In the same way, the artist briefly returns to Santander to present this exhibition and return to her current place of residence. It also suggests that spring is not coming only because the lark makes its appearance early. It is still winter, but a figurative spring comes from the hand of this Cantabrian artist. Spring and bird, to which the proverb refers, have been symbolically and personally linked to the artist and her creation for some time.
Habitat, as a suitable place for an organism, species or animal or plant community to live; as an environment suited to someone’s personal tastes and needs; as a reality that we build and inhabit at the same time. Habitat, such as the personal search for the desired environment, for one’s own place. One environment, one life. To be able to create it, to measure it. Voici le Printemps, reborn, fly.
“Fabulous alpine snowy polyhedron projected with Cambrian lights and textures”
Jose Maria Pellón
Cristina del Campo (Riosapero, Cantabria, 1981), lives and works in Switzerland. She has won the Cantabria Government Plastic Arts Award twice, the last one in 2018. She is graduated in Fine Arts by the University of Salamanca and doctor in Advanced Studies by the Complutense University of Madrid.
She has exhibited in cities such as New York, Brussels, Lisbon, Washington, Paris, Estoril or Warsaw, with institutions and galleries such as Black & White Gallery, Arthub, Mulherin + Pollard Gallery, Galeria 3 + 1 Arte Contemporânea, Colegio de España en Paris, Spanish Embassy in Washington and Instituto Cervantes in the United States and Europe. She has also participated in art fairs such as PULSE NY, ART SOUTHAMPTON and AFFORDABLE ART FAIR in New York; ARCO, JUSTMAD, ESTAMPA and SUMMA in Madrid; EST ART FAIR in Estoril or the Cantabrian ARTESANTANDER.
Her work can be found in important collections like the Cantabrian Los Bragales Collection, ACB Collection and North Contemporary Art Collection, as well as in Black & White Art Fund NY or Fundació Banc Sabadell, among others. Del Campo has won awards such as Summer Calling’13, Art <30, Gaceta Foundation Award, Ibercaja Award, Pancho Cossío Award or the Government of Cantabria Plastic Arts Grant.
The artist combines her personal artistic activity with collaborations with important artists such as Sol LeWitt, Martin Creed or Claudia Comte.
VOICI LE PRINTEMPS
7th March – 25th April, 2020
Cristina del Campo (Riosapero, Cantabria, 1981)
Galería Juan Silió
C/ Sol 45, bajo. 39003 Santander.
Opening Hours:
Monday – Saturday,
10.30AM – 1.30PM
6PM – 9PM
—
Exhibition subsidised by Ministry of Culture and Sport
