Nico Munuera
Lorca (Murcia) 1974

One of the key issues Nico Munuera addresses in his work is the contrast between craftsmanship (traditional materials and techniques) and industrial manufacture (mass production and the reproducibility of the image). His work needs to be examined calmly and unhurriedly, with attention to details, albeit this is not the way the details are reproduced in his images. Munuera constructs geographies and landscapes through the superimposition of colour fields that question the viewer in an experience that offers no guarantee of certainty.

In his most recent pieces he has abandoned the large surfaces of white paint, ripped across by coloured brushstrokes, that were seen in previous series — such as those in the exhibition 'My Ross Island' (2011). Instead, he uses a wider range of colours to 'take us to that recurring physical and interior enclave inhabited by the artist', as the new departure of his exhibition 'Isla de Boneless' ['Boneless Island'] (2016) has been defined. In the earlier series, Munuera used photographs of Ross Island, in the Antarctic, taken over a century ago, as the basis for his pictorial investigations. From there to this second islet, built from fragments of a more intimate observation, Munuera has undergone a journey that exhaustively explores the possibilities of the discipline.

Nico Munuera has exhibited regularly at Galería Max Estrella and La Caja Negra n Madrid and at Galería Rafael Ortiz in Seville. Among other scholarships and awards, he received the CAM Artistic Creation Scholarship in Berlin (2011) and the Fine Arts Scholarship from the Colegio de España in Paris (2003). His work has been featured in group exhibitions at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini (Venice, Italy, 2015); the Contemporary Art Centre of Malaga (2015); and the Instituto Cervantes in Munich (2014).

Beatriz Herráez