Angela de la Cruz

Born 1965 in La Coruña, Spain

Lives and works in London, UK

Angela de la Cruz extends and subverts the traditions of abstract and monochrome painting in her intricate installations, scattered interventions and precarious structures. Her sculptures and objects are often unbalanced and distorted as though they were born out of a physical struggle. Proceeding by trial and error, de la Cruz recycles previous works in a continuous permutation of elements. Describing her assemblages as “clutters,” she stresses the fractured and disparate nature of her work.  

Her practice is marked by the intertwining of painting and sculpture and the interrelation of abstraction and figuration. Since 1996, she has been developing a personal visual language, one which is as much conceptual as it is painterly and sculptural. Her work is concerned with researching the language of painting. Contrary to the traditional notion of a painting as a unique and singular object, she defines some of her works as commodity painting. The common denominator of these commodity paintings is that they each represent the other – all the paintings are essentially the same painting. This definition covers different categories, like recycled paintings and cluttered paintings, for example. As part of the process of recycling, she has often used every part of her work. Every bit of every painting can often be used in another painting.  

After graduating in Philosophy at the University of Santiago de Compostela in 1989, she studied at the Chelsea College of Art in London, UK, the Goldsmiths’ College in London and the Slade School of Art in London. She was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2010. She has had solo exhibitions in important institutions across the world, including Museo Cabañas in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, CGAC, Santiago de Compostela, Spain, Fundación Luis Seoane, A Coruña, Spain, Camden Arts Centre, London, UK, Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Seville, Spain, Museo de Arte Contemporanea de Vigo and Annex Space MARCO, Spain.