Arbre-Nafre

Arbre-Nafre

  • 2002
  • Charcoal and pastel on Guarro paper
  • 100 x 70 cm
  • Cat. D_308
  • Acquired in 2004
By:
Beatriz Herráez

The Banco de España has a set of works by Patricia Dauder in charcoal, gouache and pastel on paper, which the artist organises in series of works defined by the deconstruction and decomposition of the forms: ‘Deconstruction taken as a concept and as a method or process to understand a problem by destroying it’.

Drawing, deemed to be an ‘everyday activity’ has been a pivotal element in Patricia Dauder’s work from her earliest projects. Thus, throughout her career, she has explored physical spaces referring to abstract cartographies and imaginary territories by means of drawings and graphics: ‘None of the images depicted are related to a specific model in reality,’ explains the artist. This lack of recognisable models, of defined places and times, led the critic Ricardo Nicolau to establish parallels between her work and the literary techniques assayed by Raymond Roussel and the ‘works of pure imagination’ he created without any interruption from the real.

A later series of drawings include Views, Visions and Overlapping, produced from 2017 onwards. In these, Dauder insists on the accumulation and re-writing in her compositions. The drawings are constructed on walls or on tables laid on the floor where the artist juxtaposes different images and creates an ever more complex alphabet. In 2010, Dauder embarked on her Subway Series in an attempt to eradicate “certain drawing dynamics and to process what came to mind in a more automatic and less reflective way”. She repetitively and mechanically worked on the project during her underground journeys and the result again has echoes of literary methodologies, such as the experiments by Jacques Jouet and his poems written between stations.

Beatriz Herráez

 
By:
Beatriz Herráez
Patricia Dauder
Barcelona 1973

On completing her studies in Fine Arts, which included sojourns at Barcelona University (1991-1996) and at leading international schools and residencies including Ateliers Arnhem (The Netherlands, 1997-1998), Hogeschool voor de Kunst en Vormgeving (Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands, 1997), the International Studio and Curatorial Program (New York, 2011) and the Sonae/ Serralves Project (Porto, Portugal, 2012), Patricia Dauder first exhibited her work in group exhibitions organised in the Netherlands at the end of the 1990s.

Dauder is noted for her use of drawing, painting, sculpture and the projected image. Also important are the protocols that the artist activates in the construction of her pieces: she subjects them to different temperatures and degrees of humidity, lets the light strike them, allows oxidation processes that alter their surfaces and buries them for a time. Thus, her work can be compared with that of the alchemist who explores the limits and possible transformation of the material – deleted, cracked and lost in fabrics, papers, clay and plaster – and, at the time, with that of the archaeologist, whose techniques open the door to a past era, restoring the effects of time and the elements on those same images and objects. This reflection on transience is also an essential feature of her films, which frequently play out in scenarios that break free from a recognisable chronology and location.

Patricia Dauder has held solo shows at a range of venues including the Contemporary Art Museum (Vigo, 2015); the Serralves Foundation (Porto, Portugal, 2012); and the Suñol Foundation (Barcelona, 2010). She has recently been part of group exhibitions at Barcelona Contemporary Art Museum (2015); the Andalusia Contemporary Art Centre (Seville, 2010, 2014 & 2015); and the Lázaro Galdiano Museum (Madrid, 2015 and 2016).

Beatriz Herráez

 
 
Vv.Aa. Colección Banco de España. Catálogo razonado, Madrid, Banco de España, 2019, vol. 2.