The Arranz-Bravo Foundation presents the first individual exhibition in Catalonia by Natalia Domínguez

The Arranz-Bravo de l'Hospitalet foundation presents, from May 13 to July 15, Abrir la boca bien grande, cerrar el puño bien fuerte, the first solo exhibition in Catalonia by Natalia Domínguez (Jerez de la Frontera, 1990). Artist selected by the residency program of Sant Andreu Contemporani-Fabra i Coats 2023, the exhibition at the FAB is a compendium of his recent interests in the field of sculptural practice.

His work focuses on the investigation of different dimensions – physical, semantic, contextual or immaterial – linked to objects and phenomena of matter. His work starts from the exploration of objects with a sculptural charge that go unnoticed in our reality and that the artist needs to explore, deconstruct, resignify or, where appropriate, problematize.

The current artistic work of Natalia Domínguez has its origins in the project Una forma incontrolable, presented at the Instituto de América - Centro Damián Bayón (Santa Fe, Granada) at the beginning of 2022. From that exhibition a latent duality in his work, which debates between the expressive presence and the weightless fragility of matter and object bodies.

The K-FLEX FC0-10 series shows its capacity for impact and formal alteration through the use and articulation of industrial materials, such as gas and liquid pipe insulation tubes, which the artist resizes and resignifies, emphasizing the protective nature of the material and highlighting, without filters, its intrinsic rawness. However, the exhibition at the FAB emphasizes the other dimension of his sculptural work: fragile, deconstructed, dematerialized, focused on the unstable and changing capture of intangible forms.

Thus, while K-FLEX FC0-10 is a work of clear earthly ascription, ST (parachute) is a work of heavenly gaze subjugated to a radical principle of verticality. It refers to a frustrated parachute whose function has been lost by being shown upside down, stuck in a metal structure as happens when it is caught in a tree and fails in its mission to stop the fall . A parachute that at the same time wants to imitate the shapes of a cloud by generating pockets and folds that refer to the rounded and pompous aspect of this impossible-to-contain element.

Domínguez thus turns to the fall as a pretext from which to analyze our relationship with space and the invading construction of the landscape, taking a symbolic dimension as a sign, in the words of the artist Histo Steyerl, of a the world we live in today is in free fall.

Natalia Domínguez (Jerez de la Frontera, 1990) has a degree in Fine Arts from the University of Granada, has studied at the Fontys Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in Tilburg (Holland), and has a Master's in Research and Artistic Production from the Polytechnic University from Valencia Winner of the SAC-FiC Residency Program 2023 call for Sant Andreu Contemporani, participates in the collective exhibition When the sun is no longer warming, curated by Zaida Trallero and winner of the Barcelona Produccione de La Capella call. During 2022 his work has been exhibited in the SWAB Ephemeral program -curated by Caterina Almirall and Margot Cuevas-, ARCO'22, the group exhibition El cos de la muntanya -curated by Laura Olea López- and the individual exhibitions Hi is there a mountain -developed together with Carlos Aparicio- at the Tarragona Center for Contemporary Arts and Una uncontrollable form within the FACBA'22 Festival (Centre Damián Bayón, Granada). She has previously been awarded the Sala d'Art Jove Awards, Barcelona 2020 Awards and FACBA'22. He has also benefited from the 1st Production Aid 2020 from the BilbaoArte Foundation, the grants for research and innovation in the field of visual arts from the OSIC (Generalitat de Catalunya) and has been part of the Hangar residency programs , L'Escocesa (Barcelona), Snetha Residency (Athens, Greece), I UAVA/C3A Production Program at the Contemporary Creation Center of Andalusia, BilbaoArte Foundation and El Ranchito Brasil - Escorxador Madrid/AECID Residency Program, others.