Spanish Artists and Designers at ‘The Other Art Fair 2015’ in London

The Other Fair (2015) visitors have the opportunity to meet, discuss and buy from 130 emerging artists chosen by an esteemed panel of experts. In this edition several Spanish creators present their works like Elena García de la Fuente, Álvaro Tamarit, Alejandra Corral (Kuska), Carmen M. Castañeda, Carolina Amigo, Francisco Nicolás or Lorena García Mateu.

The Other Art Fair is a unique platform for undiscovered artists, a place where they can independently showcase their work: to gallerists, curators, critics and collectors. During four days they are able to launch their work in the contemporary art world, gauge the public’s response to their pieces and meet fellow artists for potential future collaborations. The fair is wide-reaching in its audience, attracting individuals who support artistic practice in other ways: advertising agencies, fashion designers and corporate companies looking to commission pieces.

Fair visitors have the opportunity to meet, discuss and buy from 130 emerging artists chosen by an esteemed panel of experts. In this edition several Spanish creators present their works like Elena García de la Fuente, Álvaro Tamarit, Alejandra Corral (Kuska), Carmen M. Castañeda, Carolina Amigo, Francisco Nicolás or Lorena García Mateu.

Elena García de la Fuente (Madrid 1975). She lives in London since 1999. She studied Fine Art at the Universidad Complutense in Madrid, before finishing her studies at Leeds Metropolitan University in 1997. She completed an MA in Contemporary Art at Sotheby’s Institute in London in 2001. In 2005 she won a Funding Award from the Prince’s Trust and since then has raised lots of money for the same charity. Elena was awarded 3rd place in the Art Interview 3rd Quarterly International Online Artist Competition, Oct 1st- Dec 31st 2005. Elena’s success has seen her work exhibited in great European cities including London, Leeds, Berlin, Salzburg and Madrid. “I work from photographs, which I reinterpret to create bold, yet reflective representations. I like changing reality as we know it to invite the viewer to look beyond what they see. I’m currently working on a series exploring people looking at art. I’m drawn to scenes that have a stillness and a strange quality of silence. I find inspiration in my surroundings as well as in Old Master painters and contemporary artists.”

Álvaro Tamarit. Award-winning artist and designer based in Cambridge, UK and Javea, Spain. Álvaro Tamarit’s work rests on concepts such as the forgotten-by-society, the past, the old and the potentially reusable. This election somehow goes against the culture of information overload and a consumerist society. Bachelors and Master degree from the San Carlos School of Fine Arts in Valencia in 2003. He has won various prestigious prizes for his work, including: First Prize at the “Salvador Soria” Vila de Benissa Painting Competition in 2008 First Prize in Sculpture at 9th Manolo Valdés Art Competition, Castellón, in 2007 First Prize in Sculpture at 33rd Bancaja Painting, Sculpture and Digital Art Award in 2006 “Séneca” grant from School of Fine Arts of Cuenca. University of Castilla La Mancha in 2002 His work has been exhibited and recognized internationally through solo and group exhibitions in Spain, The Netherlands, Germany, Cuba and Santo Domingo. With a wide repertoire of sculpture, collage and installations, this well-rounded artist is innovative and individual.

Alejandra Corral de la Serna, alias Kuska, born in 1971, lives in Madrid. She paints, most of the time, scenes ranging from illustration to artistic drawing. Her work combines painting and collage of recycled elements (magazine clippings, leaves, fabric, photos, etc…). She has a clear preference for paper as a support and in particular for artists’ books. Currently also working with textiles.

Carmen M. Castañeda. Born in Madrid, soon she becomes interested in visual and artistic world. After studying Fine Arts and Scenography in Madrid, she presents part of her work in different exhibition spaces in Madrid. Faithful to her intimate language about time, she creates pieces which are on the limit between reality and fantasy, between visible and not visible. Castañeda acquires her first knowledge about fashion design at the IED School in Madrid and Barcelona. Years later, she decides to live in Paris and London to be inspired by new influences, where she studies embroidery techniques of Haute Couture at L’Ecole Lesage in Paris and pattern making and draping at London College of Fashion. It is in this way that Anónima by cm appears, as an artistic project where the Haute Couture embroidery techniques move to a conceptual and experimental frame. It is a unique, exclusive and numbered creations with a “storyline” as a drawing. Each piece is testimony of a process that attempts to capture the fragility of memory. The use of a thread, sometimes real or suggested; the repetitive movement of a needle which breaks the silence of a canvas; the rhythm established about minutes and seconds, trying to capture the memory or its absence. Atemporality.

Carolina Amigo. The issues which fascinate her most are the delicate and the strong, black and white, single and together, up and down. „That´s what life is about. Sometimes we feel like we are on top of everything, and at times we feel like drowning“, the artist knows. Like a thin piece of wood that breaks easily, but when arranged systematically, several little twigs turn into a strong construction. The necessity to express herself and to develop in every sense is how she describes her motivation.

Francisco Nicolás. A concept very frequently used on his last work, is the idea of showing the picturewindow. He use figurative elements, particularly the landscape. Above those figurative elements, That’svery close to Magritte’s art “Cuadros ventana”(“Windows-pictures”). Other concept, is his interest for miss oposit conceptes, such figurative/abstract, clasical/contemporary, paint reality/photography reality. Technically, he use traditional methods such as acrylic, and before new technologies such as photography and digital processes. He takes pictures and do paintings of rural landscapes, manipulating the detailed landscapes, like the peasant in the land.

Lorena García Mateu, questions and explores the keys of identity and the inextricable secrets of the Cosmos and the human being with a resounding and colorful plastic language and an enigmatically existentialist narrative space. Her paintings reiterate with circumvented emphasis the disturbing gap between the “man” and that impossible certainty of the Cosmos. The “Man” (human being) is in this case Woman. A woman in her flesh, her cheeks and her psyche; an anonymous woman; a stereotypical, fragmented and elusive, melancholic, sensual, silent woman; a woman who turns her back to the beautiful and sublime horror of that exhilarating ignorance. Among organic forms, plain colors, clean strokes of geometric contour and nonexistent perspectives, the characters, full of truth and resolute presence await us in an expressive parallel world, inviting us to join their reflections.

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All info from: www.theotherartfair.com

THE OTHER ART FAIR, LONDON: 23-26 April 2015. Victoria House, Southampton Row, London WC1A 2QP