Helena Almeida: 'Seduzir' [To Seduce, 2002] (detail)

Collection

Washing Away Time

Image caption
MIREYA MASÓ

Washing Away Time

  • 2001
  • Digital print on paper
  • 125 x 245 cm
  • Edition 2/3
  • Cat. F_69
  • Acquired in 2002
By:
Isabel Tejeda

The four photos by Mireya Masó in the Collection were taken during her stay at Delfina Studios in the UK, and form part of the project It’s not just a Question of Artificial Light or Daylight (2000-2001). Washing Away Time is the only one with a title.

It’s not Just a Question of Artificial Light or Daylight brings together three series of photos and an 11-minute video taken in various London parks and in interiors as an intimate account of the concept of landscape, in which human beings are very much present even though they may not appear in the actual photos. In taking the photos she mixed scenes that she stumbled upon by chance with others that she set up, always subtly, deliberately to 'portray', but which gave an image of what was possible and enabled her to play with proxemics of objects so as to convey a close relationship with them. She herself is not always the unexpressed subject. Sometimes there are references to other people as an abstract concept, as in her photos of English park benches dedicated to people who have passed away — with the name of the deceased carved into the back of the bench — and her pictures of rose bushes bereft of blooms in winter, with their names on a little label, which can be seen as a language in itself. In this work Masó takes portraits of human beings, of their feelings and of their changing emotions. The powerful trunk of the felled sequoia is definitely a sign that leads to another sign.

Isabel Tejeda

 
By:
Isabel Tejeda
Mireya Masó
Barcelona 1963

Catalonia-born Mireya Masó studied at the Escola Eina, at the Faculty of Fine Arts of Sant Jordi and at the Faculty of Humanities of the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. She works mainly in photography, but does not class herself as a photographer: she sees photography as just another means of expression and not an end in itself. Indeed, she often sketches her photos before she takes them, i.e., she seeks to 'nuance' the scene in search of a preconceived image. Video is another major element in her toolbox, which she blends with photography at her exhibitions. Since the turn of the century, her work has focused on natural scenarios. This has been possible thanks to the enriching possibilities offered by the various artist's residencies that she has enjoyed. Mireya Masó's landscapes are domesticated and function as portraits of human beings (though no humans appear in them). The most clearly domesticated are perhaps her picture of an English garden (2000) which is reminiscent of British landscape art rooted in romanticism, and her work Antarctica: experiment no 1 (2006). In the latter, which is perhaps the wildest natural setting that she has portrayed, she generated images in which artifice and the human gaze in the face of icebergs are strongly present: 'In art, any gesture that goes beyond thought will inevitably change nature; that is why I seek to ensure that every action is fully justified. Antarctica is the visible presence of change', she has declared in regard to this, one of her best known works.

She has held residencies as an artist at the Centrum Beeldende Kunst of Rotterdam (Rotterdam, the Netherlands, 1998), the Stichting Kaus Australis (Rotterdam, the Netherlands, 2002), the Intercanvi Rhône-Alpes/Catalunya (France, 1998), the Europees Keramisch Werkcentrum (Den Bosch, the Netherlands, 1999), the Delfina Studio Trust Award (London, 2000-2001) and the Esperanza Base (Antarctica, Argentina, 2006).

Solo exhibitions of her work have been staged at the RAM Foundation (Rotterdam, the Netherlands, 2003), the Espace des Arts de Colomiers (France, 2002), the Valence Museum (Valence, France, 1999), the Europees Keramisch Werkcentrum (Den Bosch, the Netherlands, 1999), the Museu de l’Empordà (Figueres, Barcelona, 2001), Casa de América (Madrid, 2006) and the Centre d’Art Santa Mònica (Barcelona, 2010).

Isabel Tejeda

 
«It’s not Just a Question of Artificial Light or Daylight», Galería Tomás March (Valencia, 2002). «From Goya to our times. Perspectives of the Banco de España Collection», Musée Mohammed VI d'Art Moderne et Contemporain (Rabat, 2017-2018).
William Jeffett It’s not Just a Question of Artificial Lighting or Daylight. Mireya Masó, Figueras, Consorci del Museu de l’Empordà, 2001. Yolanda Romero & Isabel Tejeda De Goya a nuestros días. Miradas a la Colección Banco de España, Madrid & Rabat, AECID y FMN, 2017. Vv.Aa. Colección Banco de España. Catálogo razonado, Madrid, Banco de España, 2019, vol. 3.