Exhibitions
Conxa Sisquella: symphonies of colors
A vindication of the presence of women artists in the memory of the 20th century at the Felícia Fuster Foundation.
Conxa Sisquella (Centelles, 1920 - Barcelona, 1996) was an artist who, through color and materials, knew how to build her own voice within the Catalan artistic panorama. The exhibition currently hosted by the Felícia Fuster Foundation, the result of the collaboration with the Fornells-Pla and Conxa Sisquella Foundation, proposes to review the journey of two creators who, despite being contemporaries and sharing certain formal interests such as abstraction, followed very different paths.
The trajectories of Fuster and Sisquella did not cross paths very often, neither in terms of training nor environment. Nor did they coincide in approaches or ways of thinking. But it is precisely here that the objective of the proposal is born, to highlight two singular voices who, from very different perspectives, developed a committed and constant artistic practice. This exhibition aims to recognize the contribution of Conxa Sisquella and situate it within a broader narrative that is still in the process of revision, that of recovering the memory of 20th century women artists, often left in the background.
From today, May 9th, until July 18th, at the headquarters of the Felícia Fuster Foundation, you can see around twenty works made between the eighties and nineties. Paintings and engravings that show a determined work with color and matter. Sisquella uses supports such as burlap or cotton and incorporates fragments of fabric that function as a collage. The artist explores subtle and effective chromatic combinations, always guided by a refined intuition and also by the study of color, especially based on the theories of Joseph Albers. Series such as Symphony in Pink, Transparency in Pink and Green or Blue demonstrate this interest in the interaction between tones, intensities and textures.
Established in La Garriga from a young age, Conxa Sisquella began her artistic training in Barcelona, with the painter Alsina. She studied Fine Arts between 1945 and 1948, and in 1947 she received the first prize for painting at the Salón Femenino in Madrid. During the 1950s, her style became imbued with a certain existential tone, with works that pointed towards an incipient abstraction. Over time, and after a trip to the United States between 1969 and 1970, her painting underwent an important turn. The impact of American abstract expressionism and the experience of a freer artistic environment pushed her towards a more gestural and material work.
From the seventies, Sisquella made a painting very focused on texture and gesture, often with techniques close to dripping and graphic automatism. In addition to painting, he also developed a work in engraving, especially in etching. Towards the end of his career, his work took a different direction and geometric shapes came to the fore and color was reduced, with more structured compositions and dark tones, in which he included incisions and perforations in the canvas.
With this exhibition, we invite you to rediscover an artist who, through discretion and commitment, built a solid and interesting career. An opportunity to take a close look at a work that says a lot about the place of women artists in the recent history of Catalan art.
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