Alba Cabrera Gallery presents in Art Madrid the most intimate work of three women artists: Carmen Michavila, Isabel Gutiérrez and María Angélica Viso. Three different artistic personalities that connect with the same mystical sensibility in their artworks.

Carmen Michavila (Valencia, 1959) reflects about invisibility in her works, evoking a hidden reality. Michavila, starting from a magical realism, invites us to an inner and intimate journey, and as if it were a children's story, leads us to the purest essence. Between delicate and meticulous lines, the artist leaves empty spaces for the spectator, letting his imagination fly, to complete them.

It is inevitable not to distinguish in the art work of the Valencian artist, christian connotations. The verticality of her imaginary figures and her neutral-coloured backgrounds evoke images of earthly paradise and hell. An example of this is the work belonging to the series "Job 38:11: You will go this far, but no further. This is where the pride of your waves will stop".

Carmen Michavila

Sin Título, 2019

Acrylic on canvas

116 x 89cm

In the artwork of Isabel Gutiérrez (Madrid, 1955), the configuration of space plays a fundamental role. With a slight tendency towards the cubist work of Paul Klee and Sonia Delaunay, the paintings of Isabel Gutiérrez are developed within the figurative style, being the colour and the light essential elements in the composition. Nature is represented by the artist in its multiple manifestations, generating a chromatic and formal game defined by the different effects of light, that are multiplied every time, like nature itself, in the flora and fauna of her landscapes and gardens.

”In my paintings I have investigated relationships between colours, compositional structures and different treatments in the brushstroke, with the objective of signifying the evolution of my thoughts about the shave I perceive.”

In art works such as “Primeras hojas” or “Baile de hojas I”, both made in 2019, the great chromatic intensity and very well defined borders build the figurative motifs. The organic elements of its leaves, plants or animals are reaffirmed from a plastic point of view, much more expressive and textured than the geometric surfaces of flat colours that complement them.

Isabel Gutiérrez

Primeras hojas, 2019

Oil on board

40 x 40cm

Isabel Gutiérrez

Baile de hojas I, 2019

Oil on board

40 x 40cm

The geometrical subtle sculptures by the artist from Caracas María Angélica Viso, complete the exhibition proposal of the Alba Cabrera Gallery for Art Madrid. María Angélica Viso (Venezuela, 1971), has among her great references the artists Cruz Díez and Jesús Rafael Soto.

Viso’s artworks are generally attached to the wall. These volatile sculptures, with polyvalent and sophistic shapes, are capable of mutate into other figures. In all their pieces, as the curator Susana Benko points out, "the common element is the image of lightness.

Maria Angélica Viso Penso

Geometrías orgánicas, 2019

Aluminio y pintura anodizada

80 x 80cm

”I find a similarity between paper and metal and so I face the latter, as if it were a parchment, discovering its subtle and soft side, a facet that sometimes seems to hide it in its rigidity. Rigidity that I take advantage of to perforate it with inserts, piercing it, crossing it and then achieving illusions of fabric in movement"

Leaving behind his works of straight lines and statically geometric planes which he makes lose their rigidity, turning them into ethereal only by separating them from the surface and curving them with subtle delicacy, Viso evolves into a new series which he calls "Organic Geometries ". A series he has been working on since 2018 until today.

The work of Iyán Castaño (Oviedo, 1996) is situated within a genealogy of contemporary art that interrogates the tension between the ephemeral and the permanent, placing artistic practice on a threshold where nature, time, and perception converge. His research begins with an apparently minor geomorphological phenomenon—the traces left in the sand by the action of the tides—and transforms it into a poetic device for sensitive observation of the landscape. The temporal restriction imposed by low tide functions not only as a technical constraint but also as a conceptual structure that organizes the creative process and aligns it with an ethic of radical attention and presence.

Far from approaching the landscape as a mere backdrop or stage, Castaño recognizes in the maritime environment a generative system that precedes all human intervention. The sea, wind, and light produce autonomous records that he translates pictorially, shifting authorship toward a practice of listening and mediation.

The territory—initially asturian and progressively extended to other geographical contexts—functions as a material archive and situated memory. Each work becomes an unrepeatable index of a specific place and moment, revealing the fragility of natural cycles without resorting to explicit rhetoric of denunciation. In this way, Iyán Castaño’s painting operates as an active pause, a gesture of suspension that allows us to experience the world’s constant transformation from a sensitive and reflective proximity.

Open waters. 14-04-24. Expanded graphic on canvas. 2024. Detail.

In your practice, you work under the time constraint imposed by low tide. How does this temporal limit shape your creative process?

Low tide profoundly conditions my working method, but it does not function merely as a time limit; rather, it is the axis around which the entire project is structured. There is a prior phase in which I study meteorological conditions and the possible climatic variations of a specific day; based on this, I know whether I will be able to work and with which materials.

Once on the beach, during low tide, I have a very limited window—sometimes barely two hours or even less—in which I must move through the space searching for existing traces. If I find one, I intervene in it; if not, I must move on to another beach. After the intervention, I have to remove it quickly before the sea returns and erases every trace. In a way, these works transform the ripples of sand—those forms that are essentially ephemeral—into something permanent.

Where the sea is born. 15-09-25. Expanded graphic on canvas. 40 x 60 cm. Rodiles Beach, Asturias. 2025.

How does the meteorological and maritime environment—the unpredictability of the sea, wind, light, and tide—become a co-author of your pieces?

I do not consider the environment a co-author in the traditional sense, but rather the true author of the traces I work with. I am interested in understanding nature as a great creator: through tides, waves, wind, and light, the sand generates forms that are in constant regeneration. In order to create my works, the sea must first have created its own.

From there, using acrylics, oils, waxes, or sprays, I attempt to translate into the work my sensations and emotions in front of the sea at that specific moment. Whether it is winter or summer, cloudy or sunny, a small cove or an expansive beach, all of these context conditions result and become imprinted in the work.

Sand Ripples. 07-04-21. Expanded graphic on canvas. 189 x 140 cm. Niembro Estuary. Asturias. 2021.

Your work is closely tied to the Asturian territory—beaches, coastal forests, the cove of La Cóndia. What role do place, topography, local identity, and geographic memory play in your practice?

Place is everything in my project. Asturias was the point of departure and the territory where my gaze was formed. I have been working along this line for seven years, and over time I have come to understand that each trace is inseparable from the specific site and the exact day on which it is produced.

From there, I felt the need to expand the map and begin working in other territories. So far, I have developed works in Senegal, Ecuador, the Galápagos Islands, Indonesia, and elsewhere—and in each case, the result is completely different. The sea that bathes those coasts, the arrangement of the rocks, the morphology of the beach, or even the animals that inhabit it generate unique traces, impossible to reproduce elsewhere. This specificity of territory—its topography and geographic memory—is inscribed in each work in a singular, inseparable, and unrepeatable way.

Mangata. 05-11-25. Expanded graphic on canvas. 190 x 130 cm. Sorraos Beach. Llanes. 2025.

To what extent are climate change, rising sea levels, altered tidal cycles, or coastal erosion present—or potentially present—as an underlying reflection in your work?

My work does not originate from an ecological intention or a direct form of protest. If there is a reflection on the environment, it emerges indirectly, by bringing people closer to the landscape, inviting them to observe attentively and to develop a more empathetic relationship with the environment they inhabit. Beaches are in constant transformation, but I do not seek to fix the landscape; rather, I attempt to convey the experience of being in front of it. In this sense, each work is like a small sea that one can take home.

Tree of Life. 19-02-25. Expanded graphic on canvas. 50 x 70 cm. El Puntal Beach. Asturias. 2025.

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

In my work there is very little planning in terms of the final result, but there is a very precise preliminary planning. Before going to the beach, I monitor the time of low tide, wave height, wind, and weather conditions; based on this, I decide which beach to go to. Even so, when I arrive, I still do not know what work I am going to make. It is there that I determine which material to use, which color to apply, and where the intervention will take place. Many times, the environment simply does not allow work on that day, and chance becomes an essential element of these works. Error, in turn, becomes a new possibility if one learns how to work with it.