Painting is at the core of the artistic output of Victoria Civera (Puerto de Sagunto, 1955), that also includes a command of other artistic languages. She begins her work in the School of Fine Arts of San Carlos, in Valencia, where she collaborates with the artist Juan Uslé, experimenting with photography, photomontage and Happening art. Later she focuses on producing Neo-Expressionist style paintings as the Eighties see her visibly enlarge the scale of her works. Following a period dubbed Abstract Symbolism, she settles in New York in 1987 with her husband, Juan Uslé, who she occasionally works with on compositions that alternate between photography, photomontage and painting.
Subsequently, she embarks upon a new phase as her artistic approaches undergo significant changes - she begins to work on paintings in smaller formats and a greater concern with space becomes apparent in her output. Civera begins to use subtle tones, muted colours and abstract iconography more often, leading her work towards a more intimate place, one of reflection and metaphors. This period sees her paintings expand towards the use of objects as it incorporates materials such as plaster, cotton, linen, silk and velvet, along with objects that create a new channel of communication. Sculpture and installation also emerge in her output during this period, which sees her exhibit extensively on both sides of the Atlantic.
In the Nineties she does not abandon painting altogether, but does focus on creating installations based on the use of everyday objects, and full figuration predominates the work she produces at the end of this decade.
In this exhibition the artist displays an installation comprising eight large-scale pieces in a series she begins in 2000 and is still working on five years later. Civera stirs emotional tension via the interaction with space and the intervention of two new three-dimensional pieces that have been created exclusively for the occasion. In Saliendo del paisaje (2000), one of the large-scale paintings, the slim figure of a woman, dressed in red, comes out of the painted surface, literally touching the edge of the frame. The painted space is framed by a border of natural flax that accentuates its panoramic and illusory nature.
Other pieces such as Tunel Eterno (2001), Crossing Tunnel (2001), Ella (2000-2003) and Mal de Jem (2004) complete the installation, which alludes to the inertia of remaining in the landscape, be it cultural, social, physical or interior. They are all hermetic compositions, large black and white paintings that are connected through a geometric background with common optical characteristics that trap and intertwine the figure of a woman in action.
Exhibition´s details
Museo Reina Sofía Publications
