Angela de la Cruz
We are happy and proud to present the fourth solo exhibition with Angela de la Cruz at the gallery. Hermetic presents a group of eight new works.
Angela de la Cruz is a London-based Spanish artist. Playing with the tension between painting and sculpture her works blur the borders between the two disciplines. Often pushing her materials to their limits— resulting in mangled and fractured stretchers, and crumpled, torn, or scorched canvases — serves to visualize the dramas their titles invoke and unleash them into three-dimensional space. In de la Cruz’s work life and art merges, her works convey deep emotional presence. Many of her sculptures and wall pieces reference her own height, both before and after she suffered a brain hemorrhage in 2005 and since a wheelchair user.
The exhibition presents wall-pieces and sculptures painted in navy blue, bright red or orange. The materials span from aluminium, canvas and plywood. Several of the works are constructed of many layers of painted canvases or sheets of aluminium stacked on top of each other, creating an illusion of several images, but still as one work. The narrative for Hermetic mediates the collective feeling of resignation caused by the pandemic; the passing of time, resilience, and a desire to cut through.
“I have been thinking about a space that is both protecting and imprisoning, just the way our homes felt during the lockdown. Hermetic is about those spaces in tension between what is sealed, safe, controlled and the outside. Some of the works have been cut through; others have slightly expanded out of shape. I wanted these works to feel like they are lived-in. Like all of us going through the pandemic, we are still the same but we have changed, we are a bit damaged”
Born in 1965 in A Coruña, Spain, Angela de la Cruz studied philosophy at the University of Santiago de Compostela before moving to London where she earned a BA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths College and an MA in Sculpture and Critical Theory from The Slade School of Art. Solo exhibitions include CGAC, Santiago de Compostela, Spain (2019); Azkuna Zentroa, Bilbao, Spain (2018); PEER, London, UK (2016); Fundación Luis Seoane, A Coruña, Spain (2015); Centre d'art la Panera, Lleida, Spain (2015); Camden Arts Centre, London, UK (2010); Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Seville, Spain (2005); Museo de Arte Contemporanea de Vigo and Annex Space MARCO, Spain (2004). She was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2010 and in 2017 was awarded the Premio Nacional de Artes Plásticas, Spain. De la Cruz lives and works in London.
