Gallery - Uría Menéndez

Acclaimed Spanish artist Eduardo Úrculo (Santurce, Vizcaya, Spain 1938 - 2003 Madrid, Spain) was one of the main exponents of pop art in Spain. He used diverse styles which ranged from social expressionism and informalism to comics. In 1975, Úrculo parted ways with the world of pop art to create his own iconography, such as the suitcase, the hat and cows.

Úrculo painted numerous female portraits, particularly geishas. Utopia, one of his portraits from this series, represents women in an atmosphere where mystery and sensuality coexist in a world halfway between dreams and comics. Úrculo’s iconography of geishas represents romantic escapism and sex.

His works form part of many important collections, including those of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain; the Fundació “la Caixa”, Barcelona, Spain; the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Bogotá, Colombia; the Colección de Arte Contemporáneo de AENA, Madrid, Spain; the Fundación Juan March, Madrid, Spain; and the National Museum of Bangladesh, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Aitor Ortiz (Bilbao, Spain, 1970) creates photographic landscapes based on architecture. This is his chosen area and the field in which he experiments with various pictorial languages such as the figurative and the abstract. In a technical and artistic dialogue capable of bewildering and moving us, Aitor Ortiz plays with volume, light and shadow, endowing his works with unparalleled beauty.

In Destructuras 081, Ortiz creates highly pictorial and disconcerting urban visions that are digitally processed and provide a harsh metaphor of the ultimate fate of the polis (city-state). These images take us back to the visionary architecture of Tatlin and Rodchenko.

Ortiz’s work forms part of important collections, including those of the Centro Museo Vasco de Arte Contemporáneo (ARTIUM), Vitoria, Spain; the Museo Guggenheim Bilbao, Spain; the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain; the Patio Herreriano, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Español, Valladolid, Spain; and the Fundació “la Caixa”, Barcelona, Spain.

Jaume Plensa (Barcelona, Spain, 1955) is one of the most widely-known living Spanish artists. His work studies the relationship between humans and their surroundings through a wide range of traditional materials such as iron, innovative materials such as polyester resins and new technologies. To this end, Plensa keeps in mind the importance of memory, words and the visual and sensorial effects that his works have on the viewer.

Sitting Tattoo X integrates sculpture, light and the written word, which influences the space in which the work is placed. This piece attracts the attention of the viewer, or even the casual passer-by, with its dominating physical presence, the sheer volume of the sculpture, and essentially with the use of constantly changing coloured lighting inside the sculpture. Upon approaching the piece more closely, the viewer can read the words which represented Rodrigo Uría’s ideology and make up Uría Menéndez’s philosophy. Words such as justice, law, commitment, liberty and ethics, as well as beauty, solidarity, aesthetics, art and culture.

Some of Plensa’s other most notable works of art that are located in public spaces include the Crown Fountain at Millenium Park, Chicago, USA; Breathing at BBC Broadcasting House, London, United Kingdom; As One at Lester B Pearson International Airport, Toronto, Canada; and Twins II at Kimpo Sculpture Park, Kimpo, Seoul, South Korea.

The work of José Ramón Amondarain (San Sebastian, Spain, 1964) is a reflection on the world of art in all of its many manifestations and interactions. He analyses the relationships between art, artists, exhibition spaces and viewers throughout the history of art. In recent years he has explored the complex relationship between abstract and figurative painting and photography.

Amondarain painted the portrait Rodrigo Uría Meruéndano with one eye on Goya’s La Marquesa de Santa Cruz, which the lawyer helped to recover for Spain. Amondarain reflects on the nature of the relationship between art, memory and museums, and personifies that relationship in Rodrigo Uría, a great collector, patron and lover of art. Amondarain uses the blurred painting technique pioneered by the great artist Gerhardt Richter in this portrait.

The work of Amondarain is represented in important collections such as those of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain; the Pamplona City Council, Spain; the Museo de Bellas Artes de Álava, Álava, Spain; the Colección Grupo Endesa, Spain; and the Centro-Museo Vasco de Arte Contemporáneo (ARTIUM), Vitoria, Spain.

José Manuel Ciria (Manchester, United Kingdom, 1960) has consolidated his reputation as one of the key artists of his generation. Despite his relative youth, he already has a long artistic career behind him in which he has shown an acute and continued interest in the materials used in painting.

Considered by most critics as an abstract painter, in recent years Ciria has incorporated the human figure and other representational objects in his work, such as Cabeza. This exploration of the physical is accompanied by a strong sense of the corporal dimensions of human existence: bodies in all their manifestations, whether immediate or transcendental.

Ciria’s work can be found in various international collections such as those of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain; the Institut Valenciá d’Art Modern (IVAM), Valencia, Spain; the State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia; the Albertina, Vienna, Austria; and the Real Academia de España en Roma, Rome, Italy.

Joan Fontcuberta (Barcelona, Spain, 1955) is one of the best-known Spanish photographers. His work pushes the boundaries between reality and fiction to the limit. He creates images that question representation and memory, explore ambiguity and place the documentary and narrative value of photography in doubt. Fontcuberta considers photography as a test, as a method of approaching the truth through the reactions provoked in the viewer.

The images in Semiópolis: Génesis (Anónimo) portray a “low level flight” over pages of literary, scientific and philosophical works written in Braille. By combining perspective and backlighting, Fontcuberta represents a literary landscape reminiscent of an archaeological site.

Fontcuberta’s work forms part of public collections such as those of the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris, France; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA; and the Institut Valenciá d’Art Modern (IVAM), Valencia, Spain.

Josep Guinovart (Barcelona, Spain, 1927 - 2007) was an internationally renowned painter and engraver and one of the most unique exponents of Spain’s 20th century art scene. His work is identified by its acute sensuality and richness of material as a result of a lifelong dialogue between popular culture, particularly that of the Mediterranean and Latin American regions, traditional craftsmanship and the avant-garde spirit of the second half of the twentieth century. Guinovart was intuitive, combative and spirited, his strong personality is present in his body of work, which also expresses his social responsibility which, far from decreasing, became more deeply ingrained over the years.

His work, L’arbre és un llibre, was created as an assemblage or collage, using worn and natural elements. A lively dialogue is created between the plastic expression and its vital surroundings, made up of nature, the countryside and land, and which is expressed through symbols that form part of subjective poetic art.

Guinovart’s work forms part of collections, including those of the Fine Arts Museum of Long Island, New York, USA; the Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, Mexico; the Contemporary Art Museum, Alexandria, Egypt; the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), Barcelona, Spain; the Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, Spain; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA; the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain; the Fundació “la Caixa”, Barcelona, Spain and the Colección Fundación Juan March, Madrid, Spain.

Lluis Hortalá (Girona, Spain, 1965) investigates the mechanisms of the eye in its perception of reality. He does this by creating pictorial topographies that originate from a sensory experience of landscape. Taking nature as his starting point, Hortalá explores the psychology of the retina and the viewer in the act of contemplation.

The Sagarmatha I works depict mountains. Hortalá fragments the view of the landscape through circles, which offers us a greater conceptual understanding of the world. Faced with this image the viewer has no choice but to question the innumerable clichés with which the physical eye is faced in contemporary society.

Hortalá’s work forms part of important Spanish and international collections, including those of the Fundació “la Caixa”, Barcelona, Spain; Fundación Marcelino Botín, Santander, Spain; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain and the Trust Foundation, Washington DC, USA.

Cristina Iglesias (San Sebastian, Spain, 1956) is a multidisciplinary artist; who works in a variety of media including photography, installations and engraving. Her work investigates the development of organic and geometric forms by using industrial materials. Iglesias is interested in the idea of exploring one world within another, through sharp architectural lines.

Sin título: Diptico II is a large format silkscreen print on copper. The piece looks like a photograph of her sculpture installations, but in fact represents miniature models of her work. Through playing with the effects of light and shade, Iglesias creates a three-dimensional piece which creates an illusion of spatial depth and blurring, and even more, a distinction between natural surroundings and the space created. This is reinforced by the use of letters and word games which, read together as a fragmented text, confront the viewer with the impossible task of extracting meaning and thus, the problems of communication itself.

Iglesias’ work forms part of important collections, including those at the Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, Spain; the Tate Britain, London, United Kingdom; the Museo Guggenheim, Bilbao, Spain; The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, Los Angeles, USA.; and the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), Barcelona, Spain.

Joan Pere Massana (Ponts, Spain, 1968) is a matter painting artist whose works are full of pigments, and in some cases, touch on assemblage techniques. He uses a bright palette of colours and near childlike forms over a light background. He starts from this idea of pure creation, closely linked to Art Brut or Outsider Art, to create an initial impact on the viewer and goes on to provide a conceptual interpretation of his work.

In Guardar aquells moments. Series: El ligro del agua III, Massana uses this apparently simple tool, full of almost primary, easily recognised and universal elements. He seems to be seeking through artistic language his original primitive identity, which he can express freely without following imposed routes and without renouncing any possible resource. He uses this personal symbolism to give his work a human dimension, and transcend from the individual to the universal.

Massana’s work forms part of various international collections, including those of the Colección Testimoni, Barcelona, Spain; the Fundació “la Caixa”, Barcelona, Spain; the Collezione Eurolinea S.R.L, Milan, Italy; the Colecció de la Generalitat de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain; the Colecció Caixa de Manresa, Lleida, Spain; the Museu de Sant Pol de Mar, Barcelona, Spain; the Palazzo delle Arti Napoli (PAN), Naples, Italy; and the Pinacoteca de Jesi, Ancona, Italy.

David Nash (Esher, United Kingdom, 1945) is considered one of the most important and renowned sculptors of our time. Motivated by his interest in ecology and the environment, Nash’s work focuses on sculptures made from wood from fallen or rootless trees.

His sculptures reflect geometric and organic forms which seek a balance between nature, artistic creation and mankind. In his piece the Folded Column, Nash has created a drawing of sinuous lines in the inside of the tree trunk, which he identifies as a column.

Nash’s work forms part of important collections, including those at the Tate Gallery, London, United Kingdom; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA; and the Palais de Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Belgium. He was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts, United Kingdom in 1999.

Ignasi Aballí (Barcelona, Spain, 1958) invites us to reflect on the creative process and the inclusion of everyday objects into artistic creation. Through painting, photography and installations, the artist seeks to capture the passing of time and the marks it leaves.

Aballí’s analytical drive is evident in the serial images, classification, listing and filing seen in his work. His painstaking methodology is based on the collection, storage and classification of the materials with which he subsequently composes his work. These materials include books (as in this work Biblioteca I), newspaper cuttings, scraps of fabric and natural phenomena.

Aballí’s work is represented in important collections such as those of the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), Barcelona, Spain and the Patio Herreriano, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Español, Valladolid, Spain.

Antoni Vives Fierro (Barcelona, Spain, 1940) tirelessly seeks to reformulate the motifs that fascinate him. He is primarily known for his prints of Barcelonian life, which range from traditional bourgeois environments (crowded performances at the Liceo and Paseo de Gracia) to street scenes, which incorporate a mixture of genre painting and hustle and bustle (Los Encantes). Vives’ travels have continuously served to reinvigorate not only these themes, but also how he treats his work.

Since his original commitment to styles close to impressionist and expressionist traditions, his style has become a mixed technique where the use of oils and collage have taken prominence. He creates a dialogue where meaning comes not only from the work represented, but also from symbols of our everyday experiences. Vives is a recognised and prolific portrait artist. In Ramón Viladàs, Vives painted with free, relaxed brushstrokes in keeping with his figurative realist style, despite the air of unreality he created with an almost vague background.

Vives’ works form part of public collections in museums such as the Olympique Museum in Laussane, Switzerland; the Fundació “la Caixa”, Barcelona, Spain and the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Montevideo, Uruguay.

Painter and engraver, Joan Bennàssar (Pollença, Majorca, Spain, 1950) attended the University of Barcelona’s Faculty of Fine Arts in the 1970s, a time of radical change in Spain. His work from this period reflects the informalist influence of American abstract expressionism. During the next decade he explored a more figurative terrain. In 1985, a sojourn in Mexico influenced his use of colour and changed his focus from the human figure to the surrounding environment. Since then he has alternated between the presence and absence of the human figure in his works.

In Sent els teus vents a la meva vora, Bennássar continues his exploration of relationships and the human predicament, which he has captured in a work of considerable dimensions. Bennàssar’s work forms part of important collections such as those of the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), Barcelona, Spain.

The common denominator in the work of Florentino Díaz (Cáceres, Spain, 1954) is the perceptual ambiguity he incorporates in his sculptures. When employing the drawn line, Florentino proposes a new interpretation of minimalism and “De Stijl” constructivism, even in his use of colours.

He is an artist who likes to underline the importance and meaning of the materials used. In Sin título he exploits the transition between the rigidity of steel and the flexibility of rubber; the metal representing the firmness of structure and the rubber the flexibility of drawing.

Díaz is one of the most promising young Spanish sculptors of today. He was awarded a Fundación Marcelino Botín bursary in 2000 and in 2002 won the “Altadis Artes Plásticas” Award. His work forms part of collections such as those of the Banco de España, Madrid, Spain; the Fundación Coca-Cola Juan Manuel Sáinz de Vicuña, Madrid, Spain; the Museo Extremeño e Iberoamericano de Arte Contemporáneo (MEIAC), Badajoz, Spain; the Colección de Arte Contemporáneo Gas Natural Fenosa, Spain; the Museo de Bellas Artes de Álava, Álava, Spain and the Madrid City Council.

Considered an exponent of the influential German school of photography, Ronald Fischer (Saarbrücken, Germany, 1958) has focused his work on the portrait, in the broadest sense of the word. He portrays both people’s skin and architectural façades as purely abstract compositions.

The work Suite Group of Five is part of the Façades series. During the last decade the artist has travelled across five continents in search of contemporary buildings charged with special symbolic meaning. The protagonists of his images are brief, dense fragments of the head offices of large corporations all over the world. By fragmenting the building’s “skin”, Fischer transforms architecture into geometric painting, artificial forms, colours and traces of technology reminiscent of the impersonal urbanism of a stereotypical society which is, nevertheless, aesthetically spectacular.

Fischer’s work forms part of important collections such as those of the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France; the Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain, Strasbourg, France; and the Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst (M HKA), Antwerp, Belgium.

Sandra Gamarra (Lima, Peru, 1972) is a Peruvian painter now based in Madrid. She created LiMac, the imaginary Museum of Contemporary Art of Lima. Her work provides an insight into daily life and her intention is to figuratively express universal feelings and experiences.

Te pinto tu still 2 is a painting based on simple day-to-day things that speak to us about common and universal processes, feelings and experiences. The immaculate composition and colour of her paintings are a pictorial correlation of order and extreme care.

Gamarra’s work forms part of the following public collections, amongst others: the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León (MUSAC), León, Spain and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, USA. She was awarded a Fundación Marcelino Botín bursary in 2004 and in 2009 represented Peru at the 53^rd Biennale de Venezia.

Manuel Saro (Madrid, Spain, 1970) uses painting, photography and the fusion of the two to create his particular artistic spaces. His language, influenced by the constructivism movement, reflects places where the limits between reality and the imagination, and between physical space and mental space seem uncertain.

In the Gabinete de un coleccionista series, Saro takes the image of the exhibition halls of the great renaissance and baroque art collectors as his starting point. Saro creates a pictorial world based on geometry, where he creates a game between painted reality, painting as a parallel reality and the space created inside and outside the works themselves.

Saro’s works form part of important collections, including those of the Fundació “La Caixa”, Barcelona, Spain; the Colección de Arte Contemporáneo Gas Natural Fenosa, Spain; and the Museo de Bellas Artes de Cantabria, Santander, Spain. He was granted the ABC Painting Award and the Fundación Unicaja Award in 2001, and in 1999 won the Francisco de Goya Award and the Villa de Madrid Award.

The sculptures of Gabriel Díaz (Pamplona, Spain, 1968) are characterised by the “stripping away” of minimalism, the conceptual density of object art and the use of organic materials typical of land art.

His work seeks to combine the rational conjunction of human and cosmic values, and a return to the traditional reciprocal relationship between art and science. It is here that one of the most singular traits of this artist is to be found: Diaz’s desire to merge fields of knowledge, to initiate a dialogue ranging from aesthetics, astrophysics, mathematics and alchemy to zen wisdom.

In his series Metaesculturas, Díaz uses various layers of glass to compose empty and indefinite forms within fragile and poetic laminated structures. There is a clear antithesis between the construction and subtraction of material. Díaz has exhibited in the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain; the Museo Guggenheim Bilbao, Spain; and the Centro-Museo Vasco de Arte Contemporáneo (ARTIUM), Vitoria, Spain, amongst others.

Ana Luísa Ribeiro’s (Lisbon, Portugal, 1962) work speaks to us of memory, thoughts and the passing of time. This artist, who is mainly a painter, reflects on her experiences through different objects, primarily art books and catalogues, which she paints as faithful witnesses to the passing of time.

The pages of the book painted on the canvas Untitled represent the creation of a connection to our most intimate sphere. This bond is redefined into a public relationship involving all the surrounding space. Ribeiro’s paintings are not about books but about the conversion process of a private relationship into a public allusion, from a private experience into a universal one.

Ribeiro has had exhibitions at the Museo Arte Contemporáneo Gas Natural Fenosa (MACUF) in A Coruña, Spain; the Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany; the Centro Difusor de Arte in Porto, Portugal; and the Museu da Presidencia da República, Viana do Castelo, Lisbon, Portugal, amongst others. Her work forms part of important public collections such as those of the Fundación PLMJ in Lisbon, Portugal.

Ramón Herreros’ (Barcelona, Spain, 1947) paintings are a glow on the horizon which no gesture or word can define. He is an artist who works with a very limited range of materials, which could easily lead to his works becoming monotonous. However, Herreros is able to extract a multitude of accents from these resources.

Alpenblühe demonstrates the extent of Herreros’ desire to recover art in its most elemental sense, with its symbolic backdrop. There is something primitive in this painting; the present and past merge in a temporal dimension where colour (the vital principle) and geometry (the universal harmonious ordering principle) coexist in harmony.

Herreros’ work forms part of important collections, including those of the Centro Museo Vasco de Arte Contemporáneo (ARTIUM), Vitoria, Spain; the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), Barcelona, Spain; the Fundación Coca-Cola Juan Manuel Sáinz de Vicuña, Madrid, Spain; the Fundació “la Caixa”, Barcelona, Spain and the Colección Duquesa de Alba, Spain.

Agustín Bayón (Puente de los Fierros, Spain, 1960) studied at the Oviedo Faculty of Applied Arts. His first exhibitions in 1979 combined painting, drawing and sculpture. His work includes creations of highly sophisticated modernity. The works of this extraordinary and provocative artist revel in the use of photo-realistic trompe l'oeil, which combine compositional effects, attitudes and textual additions to the virtuous language that accentuates the expressive intensity of the image, as can be appreciated in Claustro Universidad de Oviedo.

Bayón has received important awards such as the first Jenaro Perez Villamil Award for Artistic Drawing, the Penagos Award and the first Fundación Laboral de la Construcción Award. Bayón has exhibited in institutions such as the Fundació Palau, Caldes d’Estrac, Spain, the Museo de Bellas Artes de Asturias, Oviedo, Spain, and his work forms part of important collections such as those of the Museo de Bellas Artes

Simeón Saiz Ruiz’s (Cuenca, Spain, 1956) work stands out for the aesthetic and moral demands it makes of the viewer. It brings to the fore the role of mirror images and reflection: in today’s world, the best way to “hide” something is to show everything. ST3 is a dense superficial trellis structure of lines and strokes which covers the entire surface of the painting, and allows the viewer to see in the background a shadow of an image chosen at random by Saiz.

Saiz’s works form part of important collections, including those of the Patio Herreriano, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Español, Valladolid, Spain; the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain; the Museo de Arte Abstracto Español, Cuenca, Spain; the British Museum, London, United Kingdom and The Hispanic Society of America, New York, USA.

Esther Pizarro (Madrid, Spain, 1967) explores the relationship between human beings and space starting with the idea of a city and its architecture. Transparency, the absence of limits, spatial interconnection, the juxtaposition of identities and expansion are the signs of a city. For Pizarro, the closed physical limits of our bodies expose us to this external space, which allows us to explore the interior and exterior dimensions of the city.

In Intersticio Vertical I, II, III, IV Pizarro takes the geometrical shapes of the city as her starting point, discarding the inhabitants. The sinuous lines trace the limits of the urban space and suggest roads along which we move.

Pizarro’s works form part of many public collections, including those of the Real Academia de España en Roma, Rome, Italy; the Fundación Actilibre, Madrid, Spain; the Colección Caja Madrid, Madrid, Spain; and the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport, Madrid, Spain.