Untitled. Mar de aceite 2 – Es Baluard Museu d'Art Contemporani de Palma

Untitled. Mar de aceite (Sea of oil); a colour photograph taken in 2011, it narrates Montserrat Soto’s attraction towards the culture of oil and the landscapes where olive trees are grown. The artist turns a reservoir of water into oil through a large-format triptych, using what appears to be a kind of supernatural act: two opposing liquids interchange their presence and their essence. The depth of field, play on perspective and effect produced by the chromatic range, in tones of green, forces the spectator to make an effort to understand and generate the final sense of the scene. This work was produced as a result of her participation in the exhibition entitled “Paradeisos. Culturas del Aceite y Arte Contemporáneo” (2010), which enabled her to gain a more intense proximity to the reservoirs of Córdoba and create this landscape where things real and fictitious co-exist in an integral manner.

E.B.

Artist biography

Montserrat Soto

Barcelona, 1961

She lives and works in Gumiel de Izán (Burgos, Spain). She trained in Barcelona, studying painting at the Escola Massana, and in Grenoble, where she moved in 1990 to attend the École Supérieure d’Art, subsequently obtaining recognition of her studies in Paris. She embarked on her artistic career at the beginning of the 1990s, focussing mainly on photography and video, but without disregarding other media such as the artist’s book.

In her work Soto develops two lines of investigation which are in turn articulated in series: one she calls “Espacios del arte” (Art spaces), through which she analyses the relationship between art and its spaces, spaces related to the work, its place of creation or the place where works are stored or displayed – in short, where the work “lives”, as reflected in the series “Archivos de Archivos” (Archives of Archives, 1998-2006).

The other line alludes to “Paisaje a través del viaje” (Landscape through travel), by way of spaces experienced, surrounding us and provoking a reflection on the place we move around in as in the case of “Doom City” (2005) or “Huellas” (Tracks, 2004). They are empty landscapes and spaces in which the presence of the person/people is intuited through thought and memory, but is not present because the artist’s intention is for the spectator to identify with this space and project everything that may happen from his or her interior on the basis of the image.

Over the last few years Soto has collaborated with different projects related to poetry, theatre and film: she took part in the 17th Poetry Festival in the Palau de la Música (Barcelona, 2001) through a multimedia installation; she created the set for the play Las tierras de Alvargonzález in the Teatro María Guerrero, (Madrid, 2009); and she made the short film Las que viven en la niebla (2010) alongside Spanish film director Chus Gutiérrez.

Since 1993, when she held her first individual exhibition in the Espai 13 hall of the Fundació Joan Miró (Barcelona), her work has been exhibited in Sala Montcada, “la Caixa”, (Barcelona, 1996), Koldo Mitxelena, (San Sebastián, 2004), Fundación Telefónica (Madrid, 2004), Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid, 2005), Centre d´Art la Panera (Lleida, 2006), Museo Patio Herreriano (Valladolid, 2007), Centre d’Art Santa Mònica (Barcelona, 2007), Fundación Lázaro Galdiano (Madrid, 2009) and Museo de Zaragoza (2010).

Her work is represented in both public and private collections: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid), Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (Barcelona), Patio Herreriano Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Español (Valladolid), Fundació Foto Colectania (Barcelona), Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo (Móstoles, Madrid), Domus Artium Salamanca, Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea (Santiago de Compostela), Artium de Álava (Vitoria) and Es Baluard Museu d’Art Modern i Contemporani de Palma.

E.B.