Exhibition text

There exists a device of power—subtle but effective—that operates upon female bodies in the symbolic realm: through the images, words, and narratives that have defined us (without consulting us). Historically, the image of women in art—and in visual culture in general—has been constructed from and for the enjoyment of an external gaze, generally a male one. This form of representation has directly influenced our freedom, conditioning how we live and how we perceive ourselves. In other words, the lives and freedom of women are controlled by alien images, created by men.
This exhibition is situated precisely in that territory, to challenge, resist, or propose other ways of seeing and inhabiting our bodies.

Materia Córnea is the title of the exhibition, composed of a series of large-scale drawings, several stained-glass pieces, and a small mural. It seeks to address the representation of women beyond that patriarchal aesthetic control.
The first room deals with control related to the body, or how it is established what a female body should or should not be. The installation is a continuation of Glass Goddesses, a series of sculptures made of leaded glass (stained glass) that reinterpret the traditional symbolism of this artistic medium. The series, literally drawn with glass and lead, shows the silhouettes of female bodybuilders in emblematic poses of their discipline. The intention of this work is to question the patriarchal ideals that have linked femininity with delicacy and submission, and to stand as a statement about how the duality fragility–strength coexists within the body, instead of separating it into two distinct entities: to think of the feminine as a place of tensions and contradictions, changing and dynamic, free and real, rather than as a fixed or ideal form.

The pieces subvert the classical iconography of stained glass, which, from a historical sense and in its connection to the Church, can be interpreted as a tool of moral control. The fragility of the glass highlights the vulnerability of these hypermuscular bodies, which, although they challenge gender binaries, are often made the object of discrimination. Thus, the work not only revises the tradition of stained glass but also invites us to reflect on female identity, its representation, and the capacity of art to transform inherited narratives.

In the other two rooms, a series of red-pencil drawings shows extreme close-ups of women laughing uncontrollably. In the Western collective imagination, our history exalts a feminine iconography marked by suffering—especially present in Seville: the martyred woman, represented as a sorrowful Virgin, and the tragic muse, embodied in the figure of the flamenco woman—both destined to suffer with resignation, accepting their fate, often without any possibility of reaction. The city is full of images of suffering women, with tears running down their faces or brows furrowed in pain... Against this tradition of venerated passivity—where female submission and sacrifice are sanctified—and of romanticized pain—where suffering is beautified and celebrated—my series of drawings interrupts that figure of the woman who endures, proposing instead an active role: here laughter is also excess, disobedience, and loss of control. These images thus become an anomaly in the city, appearing almost as a gesture both unsettling and ambiguous, since it is no longer clear whether they have been liberated or have gone mad.

Materia córnea (from the Latin corneus, meaning “of horn”) refers to the keratinous tissue that appears in nails, hair, or horns. Its function is to protect—to resist wear, to absorb aggression. In the context of this exhibition, I am interested in it as a sign of the bodily that hardens, that resists. In a figurative sense, speaking of this protection also means speaking of care: of oneself, of all. It is a form of transformation of the body; when the horn emerges or the nail grows, it is as if the flesh had hardened, had matured, generating a necessary shell to inhabit a hostile world.

That said, I am interested in thinking of the exhibition as if it were a single body, divided to show us the different images that inhabit it. But it is no longer a body to be admired or contemplated, for it is neither ideal nor pretends to be. It is visceral, alive, and a body that contradicts itself, sometimes to the point of fear: fragile as glass, and powerful as poison.