Descripción de la Exposición ------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------- 'We encourage one another towards the secular modern heaven of self-fulfillment: the development of personality, the relationships which define us, the status-giving job, the material goods, the ownership of property, the foreing holidays, the acquisition of savings, the accumulation of sexual exploits, the visits to the gym, the comsumption of culture. It all adds up to happiness, doesn't it - doesn't it?' Julian Barnes, 'Nothing to be Frightened of', 2008. La Unio dels Oceans is the story of a search. It's the tale of a finding and also the beginning of a learning process, but above all it is the articulation of an encounter which reaffirms this rumour which has been flying around you all those years: that life flows in the realm of a sensitive edge where knowledge and experience meet randomly with reason and fate, and once you are in tune with it you feel free to progress and advance without any restrictions. La Unio dels Oceans is also the materialisation of a feeling, something intimate and precious that in a certain way you cannot avoid when you see this work. Fina Miralles thinks of us as pure energy which works in conjunction with the natural elements, she is intensely interconnected with nature, a nature evolving and acting in concert with us. The solitary wildness of the Cap de Creus (Girona), immediately takes you back in time, I guess you cannot understand that if you have never seen the sunrise there... you feel overwhelmed by nature and its power. In the almost sacred silence of the morning, immersed in a silvery light you start to understand and to realize how nature can really speak to you without you noticing, making you aware of 'the' precise moment in which all your senses are alert and ready to perceive what we don't usually see...and it's here in this thin line of life where the work by Fina Miralles takes place. Fina Miralles, (Sabadell, 1950), is one of the artists who emerged in Catalonia during the last years of Franco's dictatorship in the early 70's. She was part of the 'conceptual movement', a group that was really important, and only now seems to receive part of the attention it really deserves. The work created by these artists has been of an enormous relevance and they can be considered or understood with other well-known artistic tendencies that emerged in this period in South America, the United States and Europe. During her early years as an artist Fina Miralles - work was an answer to what was happening in our society, back then in the late years of the totalitarian era. She had an active role against the structures of power and the artificial construction of our society, which generated frustration and oppressed individuals. Fina captured the vital signs of her epoch without losing her critical position, which is something that looking back in time has positioned her work as one of the most interesting and significant of our recent history. Fina Miralles has always been labelled under very different names or categories, feminist, land art, or even political but she doesn't really fit in with any of these labels, she goes beyond all that. We could say that as a woman her work is feminist, as an individual her work is political and as a person who loves and respects nature her work could also be land art. Her approach to art is more complex because it is her existence and artistic practice which have become her oeuvre, like in the cases of artists such as Helio Oiticica or Lygia Clark, you cannot separate her work from her personal vital experience. Fina Miralles seeks a return to emotions, to feelings such as a liberation of the self encapsulated by the rigour of a rigid intellect and the sickness of a society which separates the individual from the inner self. In a way she perceives civilization as a sort of corruption which inevitably leads mankind to failure and frustration. In a more virtual environment in which technical devices and other platforms are used as sources of transmission and communication among individuals, Fina Miralles embraces the warm touch of a hand, the infinite variations and colours of a smile or a laugh, the richness and joy of a conversation with voices echoing in front of another person. She has a strong humanist awareness which is conducted by what is dictated by human values, she wants to give visibility to what remains invisible to us, this is what she calls the invisible-visible. After two years of work what has emerged here are a series of actions and pieces which make the beholder aware of Fina Miralles -personal understanding of the world. Surprisingly the new pieces connect her recent practice with the early projects she was known for back in the 70's. The principles present in Fina Miralles- work have been reactivated in this special project bringing back some of the elements that have characterized her particular attitude to art and towards life.
La unió dels oceans es la primera exposición individual de Fina Miralles en una galería privada en casi 20 años.
Exposición. 31 oct de 2024 - 09 feb de 2025 / Artium - Centro Museo Vasco de Arte Contemporáneo / Vitoria-Gasteiz, Álava, España
Formación. 07 nov de 2024 - 28 nov de 2024 / Museo Nacional del Prado / Madrid, España
