Joana Cera and Bernad: ends to join ends

The Exhibition Hall of the Blanquerna Cultural Center-Bookstore in Madrid will inaugurate on March 6 a new artistic proposal by Joana Cera i Bernad (Barcelona, 1965), a visual journey marked by her personal view on duality and immanence. Although she began in sculpture, the artist has explored other disciplines such as video, ceramics and installation, creating her own universe where materials invite reflection.

This free, innovative and exploratory spirit of Cera will be the protagonist of the exhibition Extremidades para unir extremos, which will offer a look at his career. More than a retrospective, it is an immersion in his artistic language, characterized by the investigation of limits, borders and connections between apparently antagonistic elements. Cera explores paradox as a tool to reveal the internal contradictions of materials and question pre-established notions about the duality of the world.

Una papallona diürna i una papallona nocturna es miren, Joana Cera i Bernad (2009)

His creative process aims to illuminate new perspectives, turning materiality into a window into latent images through experimentation. In this context, Cera highlights the importance of the creative process as an intuitive and personal act. His work is not only the final result, but also the path he takes to get there. As he points out, the poetics of his pieces often reside more in the initial conception of the idea than in the final result, since the execution process is usually a moment of surprises and discoveries. Cera admits that intuition is the result of acute and attentive listening, which makes the work not just a matter of chance, but a coherence inherent in each creative moment, where materials come together organically.

Although her work does not belong to a single movement, it is possible to sense a certain influence from the avant-gardes of the 20th century, such as Dadaism, Arte Povera or Conceptual Art. However, beyond specific references, Cera acknowledges that she is guided by coherence with the idea she wants to express. As she herself explains, although she could be considered a formalist artist due to her search for beauty, her interest lies not in formal issues, but in the concept that the materials allow her to transmit. For this reason, she is reluctant to be labeled as a sculptor, since it is not the materials that define her, but her ability to make ideas emerge through them.

20 dits. Enfonsar els dits dins la terra. Omplir., Joana Cera i Bernad (2015)

This constant dialectic between opposites makes Cera's work certainly evoke Taoist thought. In fact, he began his path in sculpture with a copy of the Tao Te Ching. His artistic research has always been parallel to a deep interest in philosophy, anthropology and spirituality, turning art into a path of exploration that goes beyond mere visual perception to also become an existential inquiry.

Extremidades para unir extremos, which can be visited until May, is, therefore, an exploration of the questions that have marked Joana Cera's career and an opportunity to delve into her personal universe. The exhibition, which is part of the Punts de Fuga program of the Vila Casas Foundation—an initiative that, since 2015, has taken the work of the artists in the collection beyond its usual exhibition spaces—will be inaugurated with the presence of the artist, curator Natàlia Chocarro Bosom , the director of the Vila Casas Foundation, Joan Torras i Ragué , the Minister of Culture of the Generalitat, Sònia Hernàndez Almodóvar , and the Government delegate in Madrid, Núria Marín Martínez . Through this collaboration with national and international cultural institutions, the foundation seeks to disseminate and promote Catalan contemporary art, and, in this sense, Joana Cera's presence in Madrid represents another step in this process of expansion and dialogue with new audiences.

Dona de lot, Joana Cera i Bernad (2014)