Calvo has been a key influence in the formal and conceptual renaissance of Spanish art since the 1990s. In 1970 she was awarded a BA in advertising from the Valencia School of Arts and Crafts. She then went on to study at the School of Fine Arts in Valencia, but dropped out in 1975. In 1980 and 1981 she was awarded scholarships from the Ministry of Culture, and in 1983 she moved to Madrid on a grant from the Casa de Velázquez, where she stayed until 1985. From then until 1987 she lived in Paris on a scholarship from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In the mid-1970s, she began exhibiting her work in Madrid and Valencia. She achieved international recognition in 1980 when she was selected to participate in the 'New Images from Spain' exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and she later represented Spain alongside Joan Brossa at the 1997 Venice Biennale.

Her work is based on a reflection of the pictorial and its traditional codes and practices; since the mid-1970s, she has incorporated fragmentary objectual components into her painting, using elements made from terracotta, which are reminiscent of a kind of 'archaeology of memory'. From the 1980s on, she continued to experiment extensively with objectual devices, fusing materials, techniques and media in a way that shows links to the ideology and aesthetics of surrealism, as can be seen in her black paintings or 'rubbers', which she began in 1996. This new look at the memory of the past based on documents, photographs and old books, and a variety of objects which she recontextualizes, manipulates and alters, inspires the viewer to reflect on a variety of aspects. These include the fetishistic dimension of the object and the image, their reactivation as relics or votive offerings of the past and the repulsion felt towards stagnant religious traditions and the repressive forms that society exerts on the subject, which Calvo moulds in her works into a melancholic theatricalization of desire.

Calvo has been a constant figure on the Spanish and international art scene since the mid-1970s, with a retrospective of her work at the Valencia Institute of Modern Art (Valencia, 1990); another important anthological exhibition at the Palacio de Velázquez, Reina Sofia Museum (Madrid, 2002); and, more recently, at the Tomás y Valiente Art Centre (Fuenlabrada, Madrid, 2014) and at the Sala Alcalá 31 (Madrid, 2016-2017), among many others. She has received numerous awards since she was first awarded the Alfons Roig Award by the Provincial Government of Valencia in 1989 and the National Plastic Arts Award in 2013.

Roberto Díaz