Lisson Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of new work by Angela de la Cruz. Fiercely emotive, de la Cruz’s work examines the language of painting and sculpture, challenging the established norms and testing the boundaries of both mediums.
Says Lisson Gallery's Curatorial Director Greg Hilty, “De la Cruz’s fierce independence of vision and confidence with the physical matter of her work marks her out as one of the truly unique artistic voices of her generation.”
De la Cruz’s work is both unapologetically raw and darkly humorous, possessing a physicality that is as much influenced by the work of comics such as Jacques Tati, Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd as it is by the visceral nature of Goya’s painting. Through violent interventions she anthropomorphises her work, manipulating and deconstructing her canvases and materials so that they appear broken, crumpled and collapsed. Twisted and deflated, her works lie as crushed or crumpled bodies on the gallery floor and wall.
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The show at Lisson, her first since 2004, draws direct inspiration from the artist’s own experience. Many of the works mimic de la Cruz’s own physical proportions, blurring the distinction between body and body of works, the artist and the production of art. Often torqued and warped, they function as humorous meditations upon the human body’s limitations and failures.
A number of works explore de la Cruz’s interest in the elasticity and potentiality of aluminium. Aluminum surfaces project outward from walls and floors, forcing the viewer to directly confront the experience of viewing. These works are dominant and shameless, boldly intruding upon their immediate space. Yet, stripped of context, they also appear vulnerable and naked, awkwardly exposed against the white walls of the gallery.
Angela de la Cruz is a recent recipient of a Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Visual Artists and was also nominated for the 2010 Turner Prize and the 2011 South Bank Sky Arts Awards for Visual Art.
About the artist
Angela de la Cruz (b.1965, La Coruna, Spain) lives and works in London. Solo exhibitions include Camden Arts Centre, London (2010); Culturgest, Lisbon (2006); Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporaneo, Seville (2005); Museo de Arete Contemporanea de Vigo, Spain (2004); Lisson Gallery, London (2004). Group exhibitions include Tate Britain (2010); National Gallery, Canberra (2009); HoviArt, Finland (2009); Union Fenosa, Spain (2009); Dundee Contemporary Arts, Scotland (2008); Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York (2007).
