Helena Almeida and Chema Madoz. "Inhabited designs" at the Foto Colectania Foundation

On the occasion of its 20th anniversary, the Foto Colectania Foundation, thanks to the main collaboration of the Banco Sabadell Foundation, presents Helena Almeida from 22 June | Chema Madoz. Inhabited Designs, an exhibition that pays homage to two of the first authors to form part of his collection. Inhabited Designs is an exhibition that is located at the confluence of the works of Almeida and Madoz: two artists who, having different creative universes, agree to choose photography as the means to move our creations full of imagination and subtlety.

Helena Almeida has been experimenting with the limits of painting since her first works in the 1960s, with proposals such as escaping painting. He continued to use this medium in various works until the mid-1970s. He always experimented with his own image, looking for new ways to explore the relationship between the human body and the space around it.

“I treat my body as if it were a visual installation and fixate it through photography, and then integrate. I prefer to talk more about ephemeral sculpture than performance, as I try to set a moment to draw attention to what is most subtle, that the image is shaped, stopped. That's why I choose photography and also black and white, ”said Helena Almeida.

For his part, Chema Madoz often oscillates between opposing concepts (what is virtual and what is real, appearance and reality), sometimes manifesting a tension that is shaped through photographs of precise and symmetrical framing. “I have always had the feeling of being able to handle the meaning of the images. It's something I can play well with, "said Chema Madoz. Both Almeida and Madoz had an artistic background that ended up orienting them towards universes where the image is the protagonist, an area they master with special skill and which they approach from different perspectives.

While Almeida began exhibiting paintings and drawings, opting for the use of photography in his series in 1974, Madoz turned to this medium from its inception. Despite being connected to the artistic movements of his time, his work did not arouse special interest in its beginnings. However, in both cases, they later gained overwhelming recognition, both from the public, critics and collectors, and from their own colleagues. The most significant difference between the work of both authors could be located in the approach: while Almeida was interested in breaking the formal limits of creation, always expressing himself through his own body (“my work is my body, my body is my work ”), Madoz focuses on conceptualizing ideas through a hybrid practice, in which the tools of visual poetry or the tradition of the surrealist object are incorporated into the register photographic.