Announcing representation of Cristina de Miguel
V1 Gallery is pleased to announce
Representation of Cristina de Miguel
TUESDAY 7 JANUARY 2025
COPENHAGEN, DENMARK
V1 Gallery is pleased to announce the representation of Cristina de Miguel (b. 1987). De Miguel has worked with V1 Galley since 2023 and had a solo exhibition, About Last Night, in 2023. De Miguel’s work is powerfully expressive, conveying a range energetic emotions built on art historical references and affinities.
Her work centres around a curiosity about human bodies in painting and how they physically express social interactions, liberation and anxieties, which is conveyed in her energetic brushwork. Her work investigates postures that communicate beyond their shape. In de Miguel’s decentred paintings, oil stick is often used to accentuate visual sentiments. Content and application of paint are interdependent in the works, and one does not take precedence over the other.
Her creative process is intuitive and immediate; she avoids pre-planning, preferring to begin in front of the blank canvas, where the ideas and images gleaned from her engagement with the world coalesce.
The female protagonists in de Miguel’s painting are dancing, running, doing yoga and even the ones lounging seems to be in motion. The sensation of motion is amplified by de Miguel’s painterly strategy, working with very liquid paint on large-scale canvases. A process that is difficult to direct, a constant negotiation between intention, gravity, velocity, surface tension and the accidental. She says: "My current body of work explores the chimera-like merging of human and animal forms, specifically the combination of dog and female figures, bitches, or perras in Spanish. This duality captivates me, as the fusion of a dog's body with a human head creates an uncanny, surreal presence that elicits visceral reactions from viewers. These hybrid figures serve as a vessel for examining autonomy, rebellion, and the defiance of societal expectations placed on women. For me, dogs symbolize instinctiveness and freedom, a raw, unrestrained power that resonates deeply, particularly in today’s political climate. I’ve experienced the tension between the desire for freedom and the structures that constrain it. These paintings become a space for me to confront and reconcile this dissonance."
A compositional choreography that you can only train hard for, but never fully control, because that is not the intention, the independent painting is. De Miguel channels the work. Based on years of practice, de Miguel paints intuitively in a manner where subject matter, paint and process melt into one. An intuitive way of creating, based on years of practice, where subject matter, paint and process melt into one.
Two new works by de Miguel work will be featured at V1 Gallery’s presentation at Art Herning (Herning, Denmark) from 30 January to 2 February 2025. De Miguel will have a solo presentation at V1 Gallery in April 2025.
Cristina de Miguel, born 1987, Sevilla, Spain, lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, USA. De Miguel holds a Master’s Degree in fine arts from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY, USA, 2012 and a Bachelor in Fine Arts from the University of Sevilla, Spain, 2010. Recent exhibitions include: Dissolving, Almine Rech Gallery, London, UK, 2024; Cristina de Miguel & Jenny Brosinski, Almine Rech Gallery, NY, USA 2023; El Caer y el Viento, Villa Magdalena, San Sebastian, Spain, 2023; Gente Cayendo del Cielo, L21 Gallery, Mallorca, Spain, 2022; Wheels, Flying Bodies, and Other Stories, Fredericks & Freiser, New York, NY, USA, 2022; Procession Paintings, Tennis Elbow at The Journal Gallery, New York, NY, USA, 2021; and Paintings of Through and Fell, Allouche Benias Gallery, Athens, Greece, 2021.
Please contact mail@v1gallery.com for any inquiries.
Photo by Albert Font.