Visiting the work of María José Gallardo is, at times, like entering a second-hand market, finding a space between its shelves and collecting the strangest things, most connected with the dark side of religion and death. Incomplete tarot decks, unpaired earrings, faded metal boxes, cracked photos, crosses and skulls, make up a sample of dissonant elements that, in the work of this artist, acquire meaning and entity. It is an invitation to an initiatory journey, a way that confronts us with an unexplored part of our minds and that often wakes up before the vividness of a memory.

Mª José Gallardo

El templo de las estrellas, 2017

Oil, enamel on canvas

81 x 65cm

Mª José Gallardo

Catedral, 2016

Oil, enamel, gold leaf on canvas

100 x 81cm

Her artistic proposal is based on a mixture of styles that plays with the misunderstanding and the multiple possibilities of painting, such as her work "You may not be luminous, but you are a conductor of light" where pixelated vegetable motifs are identified, which could seem a blur cross-stitch embroidery or a 17th-century tapestry framed between scrolls of gilded wood. His pieces rarely include a single element. They are presented as allegories of the complexity of human thought itself, of the warp of ideas and sensations that link us with the object reality of our environment, and which the artist represents with an aesthetic that feeds on Rococo and Horror Vacui, on the Baroque religious imagery and contemporary illustration based on sharp contrasts and angular contours.

Mª José Gallardo

1917, 2017

Oil, enamel, gold leaf on canvas

100 x 81cm

Mª José Gallardo

Coco III, 2017

Óleo, esmalte, pan de plata / lienzo

100 x 81cm

Although throughout her career María José has worked on several proposals with different and even risky themes, such as the series dedicated to Hitler and Nazism, an essential aspect of her work is the presence of the symbol. It is that element capable of condensing immaterial values that the social-individual attributes to the object. Many of her works recover those meanings, which go from the esoteric to the earthly, from the connections with religious beliefs to their projection on more mundane and materialistic aspects such as representations of power, wealth or social position. María José addresses these issues, respecting to a large extent the traditional depiction of these spheres, which preserve their particular aesthetic and whose artistic tradition goes back to the beginnings of iconography (religious or not) in the West. For this reason, the recourse to gold leaf and the reproduction of spaces of worship, such as cathedrals or temples, has a deep connection with spirituality and the way in which the collectives have transferred this spirituality to tangible reality.

Mª José Gallardo

Mascota. Cuervo, 2017

Oil, enamel, gold leaf on canvas

46 x 38cm

Mª José Gallardo

Mascota. Gato, 2017

Oil, enamel, gold leaf on canvas

46 x 38cm

The works of the exhibition "In the enchanted forest" are a catalogue of magical beings, those who inhabit the usual corners of fairy tales and who make their appearance among branches of flowers and rays of light. But true to her style, María José displays all her pictorial potential in these pieces, which do not hide a dark side that faces the hackneyed "happy-ending". A narrative is thus constructed closer to the original story of Brothers Grimm. Her proposal looks at us frankly and offers a less truculent and real vision of the history in which we are all invited to participate.

The practice of the collective DIMASLA (Diana + Álvaro) is situated at a fertile intersection between contemporary art, ecological thinking, and a philosophy of experience that shifts the emphasis from production to attention. Faced with the visual and material acceleration of the present, their work does not propose a head-on opposition, but rather a sensitive reconciliation with time, understood as lived duration rather than as a measure. The work thus emerges as an exercise in slowing down, a pedagogy of perception where contemplating and listening become modes of knowledge.

In the work of DIMASLA (Diana + Álvaro), the territory does not function as a framework but rather as an agent. The landscape actively participates in the process, establishing a dialogical relationship reminiscent of certain eco-critical currents, in which subjectivity is decentralized and recognized as part of a broader framework. This openness implies an ethic of exposure, which is defined as the act of exposing oneself to the climate, the elements, and the unpredictable, and this means accepting vulnerability as an epistemological condition.

The materials—fabrics, pigments, and footprints—serve as surfaces for temporary inscriptions and memories, bearing the marks of time. The initial planning is conceived as an open hypothesis, allowing chance and error to act as productive forces. In this way, the artistic practice of DIMASLA (Diana + Álvaro) articulates a poetics of care and being-with, where creating is, above all, a profound way of feeling and understanding nature.

In a historical moment marked by speed and the overproduction of images, your work seems to champion slowness and listening as forms of resistance. Could it be said that your practice proposes a way of relearning time through aesthetic experience?

Diana: Yes, but more than resistance or vindication, I would speak of reconciliation—of love. It may appear slow, but it is deliberation; it is reflection. Filling time with contemplation or listening is a way of feeling. Aesthetic experience leads us along a path of reflection on what lies outside us and what lies within.

The territory does not appear in your work as a backdrop or a setting, but as an interlocutor. How do you negotiate that conversation between the artist’s will and the voice of the place, when the landscape itself participates in the creative process?

Álvaro: For us, the landscape is like a life partner or a close friend, and naturally this intimate relationship extends into our practice. We go to visit it, to be with it, to co-create together. We engage in a dialogue that goes beyond aesthetics—conversations filled with action, contemplation, understanding, and respect.

Ultimately, in a way, the landscape expresses itself through the material. We respect all the questions it poses, while at the same time valuing what unsettles us, what shapes us, and what stimulates us within this relationship.

The Conquest of the Rabbits I & II. 2021. Process.

In your approach, one senses an ethic of exposure: exposing oneself to the environment, to the weather, to others, to the unpredictable. To what extent is this vulnerability also a form of knowledge?

Diana: For us, this vulnerability teaches us a great deal—above all, humility. When we are out there and feel the cold, the rain, or the sun, we become aware of how small and insignificant we are in comparison to the grandeur and power of nature.

So yes, we understand vulnerability as a profound source of knowledge—one that helps us, among many other things, to let go of our ego and to understand that we are only a small part of a far more complex web.

Sometimes mountains cry too. 2021. Limestone rockfall, sun, rain, wind, pine resin on acrylic on natural cotton canvas, exposed on a blanket of esparto grass and limestone for two months.. 195 cm x 130 cm x 3 cm.

Your works often emerge from prolonged processes of exposure to the environment. Could it be said that the material—the fabrics, the pigments, the traces of the environment—acts as a memory that time writes on you as much as you write on it?

Álvaro: This is a topic for a long conversation, sitting on a rock—it would be very stimulating. But if experiences shape people’s inner lives and define who we are in the present moment, then I would say yes, especially in that sense.

Leaving our comfort zone has led us to learn from the perseverance of plants and the geological calm of mountains. Through this process, we have reconciled ourselves with time, with the environment, with nature, with ourselves, and even with our own practice. Just as fabrics hold the memory of a place, we have relearned how to pay attention and how to understand. Ultimately, it is a way of deepening our capacity to feel.

The fox and his tricks. 2022. Detail.

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

Diana: Our planning is limited to an initial hypothesis. We choose the materials, colours, places, and sometimes even the specific location, but we leave as much room as possible for the unexpected to occur. In the end, that is what it is really about: allowing nature to speak and life to unfold. For us, both the unexpected and mistakes are part of the world’s complexity, and within that complexity we find a form of natural beauty.