Elena Gual

Elena Gual has a marked and recognizable technique inspired by the image of interracial women despite continuing to open new lines of work and even venturing into abstraction. Her work is characterized by the use of the palette knife and his knowledge of Renaissance painters and classical sculpture techniques.

All this, thanks to the three years of training at the art academy in Florence. Later she moved back to London, where she lived from the age of 16 to continue her training at the Royal College of Art and Central Saint Martins. She has exhibited in Monaco, Paris, Venice and London. Back in Spain, Arena Martínez Projects presents her work for the first time in her country at Estampa 2021 fair, on the occasion of the Art Madrid fair her work can be seen for the second time in Spain.

Elena Gual

Reflexión, 2021

Oil on canvas

40 x 40cm

Interview:

¿What inspires you to create?

I don’t think I have something special or a new perspective on the subject. In the end, it is mainly the colors, the emotions I feel on a daily basis, even my journeys are a source of inspiration. Throughout my career I have also started recognizing that inspiration is also a solution to a problem. Like Picasso said once, inspiration is found through work, and that is exactly what I do. When something does not quite come out as I expected, I start producing and evolving, until I find a goal that I’m satisfied with.

¿What have you been working on lately?

During the last 4 years I have centered my production on womanhood, trying to reach equality between us through my strokes on the canvas. Lately I’m centering myself a lot more on emotions, I think that is the reason why I am a lot less conceptual and more figurative these days. I am focused primarily on the subject of our bodies and equality.

Elena Gual

Niza, 2021

Óleo en tabla de madera

37 x 35cm

Tell us about your creative process.

When I studied in the Accademy of Florence, before sitting at the easel the process was: sketching, studying the composition and studying the light. It helped me a lot when it came to creating my own artwork. It makes me understand exactly what I want: from composition, to lighting, from start to finish.

Is this your first time at the fair? What do you expect Art Madrid?

Something that I really love about art fairs is having my paintings exposed to the public, having them to be present in the event knowing that many people will see them. I like to think that they will cause a wide range of emotions: some people will stop and stare at them, others will completely ignore them. But most importantly, they will be in the memory of many people.

In your realistic portraits you represent female figures of different ethnicities, ages and cultures. Are they women you meet on your travels, are they part of your life?

Most of the women I have painted have been part of my life in some way or another. I have known them in my journeys, I have co-lived with them many adventures. But I have to say that, now more than ever, I try to inspire myself in the connection I make with these women, in something more concrete, like a story that they choose to tell me, and from there I try to recreate an emotion.

Elena Gual participates in Art Madrid with Arena Martínez Projects, along together with Paspartus, Carlos Cartaxo, Juana González y Francisco Mendes.

The painting of Daniel Bum (Villena, Alicante, 1994) takes shape as a space for subjective elaboration, where the figure emerges not so much as a representational motif but as a vital necessity. The repetition of this frontal, silent character responds to an intimate process: painting becomes a strategy for navigating difficult emotional experiences—an insistent gesture that accompanies and alleviates feelings of loneliness. In this sense, the figure acts as a mediator between the artist and a complex emotional state, linking the practice of painting to a reconnection with childhood and to a vulnerable dimension of the self.

The strong autobiographical dimension of his work coexists with a formal distance that is not the result of conscious planning, but rather functions as a protective mechanism. Visual restraint, an apparent compositional coolness, and an economy of means do not neutralize emotion; instead, they contain it, avoiding the direct exposure of the traumatic. In this way, the tension between affect and restraint becomes a structural feature of his artistic language. Likewise, the naïve and the disturbing coexist in his painting as inseparable poles, reflecting a subjectivity permeated by mystery and unconscious processes. Many images emerge without a clearly defined prior meaning and only reveal themselves over time, when temporal distance allows for the recognition of the emotional states from which they arose.

The Long Night. Oil, acrylic, and charcoal on canvas. 160 × 200 cm. 2024.

The human figure appears frequently in your work: frontal, silent, suspended. What interests you about this presence that seems both affirmative and absent?

I wouldn’t say that anything in particular interests me. I began painting this figure because there were emotions I couldn’t understand and a feeling that was very difficult for me to process. This character emerged during a very complicated moment in my life, and the act of making it—and remaking it, repeating it again and again—meant that, during the process, I didn’t feel quite so alone. At the same time, it kept me fresh and connected me to an inner child who was broken at that moment, helping me get through the experience in a slightly less bitter way.

Santito. Acrylic and oil on canvas. 81 × 65 cm. 2025.

There is a strong affective dimension in your work, but also a calculated distance, a kind of formal coldness. What role does this tension between emotion and restraint play?

I couldn’t say exactly what role that tension plays. My painting is rooted in the autobiographical, in memory, and in situations I have lived through that were quite traumatic for me. Perhaps, as a protective mechanism—to prevent direct access to that vulnerability, or to keep it from becoming harmful—that distance appears unconsciously. It is not something planned or controlled; it simply emerges and remains there.

Night Painter. Acrylic on canvas. 35 × 27 cm. 2025.

Your visual language oscillates between the naïve and the unsettling, the familiar and the strange. How do these tensions coexist for you, and what function do they serve in your visual exploration?

I think it reflects who I am. One could not exist without the other. The naïve could not exist without the unsettling; for me, they necessarily go hand in hand. I am deeply drawn to mystery and to the act of painting things that even I do not fully understand. Many of the expressions or portraits I create emerge from the unconscious; they are not planned. It is only afterwards that I begin to understand them—and almost never immediately. A considerable amount of time always passes before I can recognize how I was feeling at the moment I made them.

Qi. Acrylic on canvas. 81 × 65 cm. 2025.

The formal simplicity of your images does not seem to be a matter of economy, but of concentration. What kind of aesthetic truth do you believe painting can reach when it strips itself of everything superfluous?

I couldn’t say what aesthetic truth lies behind that simplicity. What I do know is that it is something I need in order to feel calm. I feel overwhelmed when there are too many elements in a painting, and I have always been drawn to the minimal—to moments when there is little, when there is almost nothing. I believe that this stripping away allows me to approach painting from a different state: more focused, more silent. I can’t fully explain it, but it is there that I feel able to work with greater clarity.

Crucifixion. Acrylic on canvas. 41 × 33 cm. 2025.

To what extent do you plan your work, and how much space do you leave for the unexpected—or even for mistakes?

I usually feel more comfortable leaving space for the unexpected. I am interested in uncertainty; having everything under control strikes me as rather boring. I have tried it on some occasions, especially when I set out to work on a highly planned series, with fixed sketches that I then wanted to translate into painting, but it was not something I identified with. I felt that a fundamental part of the process disappeared: play—that space in which painting can surprise even myself. For that reason, I do not tend to plan too much, and when I do, it is in a very simple way: a few lines, a plane of color. I prefer everything to happen within the painting itself.