Art Madrid'26 – FEMALE GALLERISTS, WOMEN OF ART IN ART MADRID’18

FEMALE GALLERISTS, WOMEN OF ART IN ART MADRID’18

Jan 11, 2018

art madrid

Nuria Formentí, “A veces ando por las nubes”, mixed technique.

 

 

 

Although the statistics continue to speak of a minimum visibility of women artists and a spurious role in the capital sectors of the art world (and we did not save any of the fairs or of the main institutions and museums ...), the women of art are coming out of this inherited trend and do what they have been doing for centuries: be true to their principles. In Art Madrid'18 we are lucky to work for years with great female professionals who have struggled to gain a foothold in the sector of their respective cities, women gallerists who bet on quality, for long and close relationships with their artists and for the intuition.


The Marita Segovia Gallery, in Madrid, opened its doors in 2004 and, uninterruptedly, has participated in national and international fairs, consolidating itself as a dynamic, eclectic space with an interesting curatorial work. The gallery works with national and foreign artists of short and long career and with work of all disciplines, from painting to photography, video-creation etc ... Marita Segovia presents a mixed proposal in Art Madrid’18 (2 male artists and 2 women) composed of Joaquim Chancho, Angela Glajcar, Hernández Pijuan and Dominica Sánchez.

 

 

Angela Glajcar, “Terforation 007”, 200gr paper, metal support and plastic, 2017

 

 

 

Angela Glajcar is a German sculptor who works with plastic and paper and creates works that play with the space between solid and vacuum. She perforates sets of sheets of paper creating a strong sculptural presence that floats freely in space or rests on the plane. During the last years, she has received numerous recognitions, such as ZONTA Art Prize, Phoenix Art Prize and Regionale 2010 Wilhelm-Hack-Museum.


Dominica Sánchez, on the other hand, uses painting to arrive at a more intimate observation of the natural world, to establish a dialogue between the fragile and ephemeral and the volume's musculature. Sánchez has long perfected this pictorial language, whose simplicity does not clash with the depth of the emotions that the drawings entail, they are not just sketches for his sculptures, but rather independent works.


From Valencia, comes the gallery Alba Cabrera, directed by Graciela Devincenzi D'Amico that is dedicated from its origins to promote young values and renowned artists to whom it dedicates fantastic monographic exhibitions and shows their work in fairs around the world. It also proposes an egalitarian tandem at the February fair with works by Cristina Alabau, Nanda Botella, Calo Carratalá and José Juan Gimeno.

 

 

 

Cristina Alabau, “Espacio interior”, watercolor and collage, 2017.

 

 

 

Cristina Alabau moves between natural figurative and abstraction with light as the main protagonist of her canvases, which brings poetics, emotion, intimacy and that almost meditative tone reminiscent of oriental philosophies, contemplation and retirement. Her work can be seen in the Museum of Villafamés, the Spanish Ministry of Culture, the Palau de Valencia or the Polytechnic University of Valencia.


Nanda Botella is undoubtedly more material, in her paintings and collages she combines the sign and the doodle, the writing and the color stain, the textual and what is sewn. Her pieces are vertebrate, reticular, whose aesthetics can be understood as a collage of memories and dreams in which fragments of cloth are mixed, written messages and that evolve from paintings to installations, more luminous and experimental.


In Oviedo, Arancha Osoro runs an art space in the heart of the city that has become a reference for collectors and local art lovers. Focused exclusively on contemporary and emerging art, they opt for an authentic and personal art that has nothing to do with the mercantilist trends that move the artistic sector and they approach their clients with a fresh, innovative, future offer, working closely with each artist, helping them in their career to consolidate their own style. The artists participating in Art Madrid’18 of this gallery are Nuria Formenti, Jezebel, Kiko Miyares, Luis Parades and Roberto Rodríguez.

 

 

 

Jezabel Rodríguez, untitled, acrylic on canvas, 2017.

 

 

 

The artist Nuria Formentí was born in Gijón but has lived in different countries such as Panama, the United States, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, although it was Colombia, specifically Cartagena de Indias, the city that left her a deep impression and in which, in 1999, she started to paint. Her work, essentially on paper, in watercolor, graphite and ink, has often been described as magical realism because her drawings and spots have something of narration and dream. Pictorial art and word are mixed in her papers, which recalls the first vocation as a writer of this artist.


Jezabel Rodríguez paints memories. In her paintings, the matter is a fugitive, transparent matter, almost a phantom of the object, of still life, a shadow of presence ... Educated in diverse disciplines such as sculpture, painting and ceramics, her paintings, of a pure white have fragile volumes like pieces freshly taken out of the oven. In 2016, she participated in the exhibition in the Museum of Fine Arts of Asturias "Contemporary Art in the Museum of Fine Arts of Asturias, last generations", she won the third prize in the Contest of Casimiro Baragaña and the second prize in the XXI Painting Contest Nicanor Pinole.

 

 

Juan Genovés, “Abaco”, Gliclee-papel Hahnemuhle Photo, 2016.

 

 

 

Also from Asturias, from Gijón this time, comes one of the faithful gallerists to Art Madrid, Aurora Vigil-Escalera, which directs new space as continuity to her thirty years of profession, initiated in 1984, as a member of the Van Dyck Gallery by the hand from his parents Alberto Vigil-Escalera and Ángeles Pérez. Consecrated art, artists of a long and medium career that are updated according to the concerns of the director, her discoveries and her own changes in the art sector, in definitive, experience and quality are the hallmarks of this gallery, an essential visit for many collectors. The artists with whom she participates in Art Madrid'18 are Pablo Armesto, Gorka García, Juan Genovés, Pablo Genovés, Rafa Macarrón, Chema Madoz, Ismael Lagares, David Rodríguez Caballero and Santiago Picatoste. An impressive portfolio.


And more news, because the new project of the Galician Art Gallery Luisa Pita was born as a continuity of the activity that the Bus Station Space Gallery, founded and directed by herself, had been developing in Santiago de Compostela since 2012. Focused now as a more ambitious cultural project, with its own and more personal meaning, this new exhibition space aims to be a meeting point for art between renowned and emerging artists. She works with, among other artists, Yolanda Dorda (a real discovery in the last edition of Art Madrid), Rebeca Plana and Maria José Gallardo (another of the favorites last year at the fair). For Art Madrid'18 she has selected works by Arturo Álvarez, Pierre Louis Geldenhuys and Christian Villamide.

 

 

 

Lino Lago, “Rojo”, oil on linen canvas, 2017.

 

 

 

We finish with another Galician gallery, the Moret Art gallery in A Coruña, directed by Nuria Blanco and with a team of professionals specialized in the contemporary art market committed to emerging art. Moret Art uses many resources that have been incorporated into the sector in recent years, documentary supports, didactic activities, artistic meetings, technological resources designed around the exhibition project ... Everything to bring art, in all its forms, to one audience at a time more extensive and varied. Moret Art also carries out consulting projects related to the valuation and cataloging of works of art and antiques. With a taste for photography and for the new realism, they come to Art Madrid'18 with works by Xurxo Gómez-Chao, Miquel Piñeiro, Iván Prieto and Lino Lago, whose hyperrealist paintings are abruptly interrupted by the stain, or left barely imagining behind of relentless curtains of pure color, always playing with the expressive possibilities of painting with an almost irreverent attitude and pop in the hands of a master with a very refined pictorial technique.


To this group of women of art they join, for the first time in Art Madrid, the gallerists Mercedes Roldán and Soraya Cartategui, both based in Madrid, the Valencian gallery Shiras, with Sara Joudi in charge, and Nebo Art Gallery, directed in Ukraine by Valeriia Ivanova. In addition, Sofía Hernández, director of the Léucade de Murcia gallery participates for the second year in a row at the fair, as well as Arte Periférica, co-directed by Anabela Antunes, and the Zielinsky Gallery, with Carla Zerbes. In the One Project program we will have the presence of Bea Villamarín, director of the homonymous gallery in Asturias and the Brazilian Rv Cultura e Arte, directed by Larissa Martina, as well as Laura Clemente, co-director of Pantocrator Gallery. We can not forget some unconditional galleries like the Gallery BAT, where Mariam Alcaraz is in charge, Art Lounge, by Sofía Tenreiro da Cruz, and the Kreisler Gallery, co-directed by Gabriela Correa. Of all of whom we will talk to you later.

 

 

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CONVERSATIONS WITH ADONAY BERMÚDEZ

JULIÁN MANZELLI (CHU): LABORATORY OF FORMS

Jan 30, 2026

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ART MADRID’26 INTERVIEW PROGRAM. CONVERSATIONS WITH ADONAY BERMÚDEZ


The work of Julian Manzelli (Chu) (Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1974) is situated within a field of research in which art adopts methodologies close to scientific thinking without renouncing its poetic and speculative dimension. His practice is structured as an open process of experimentation, in which the studio functions as a laboratory: a space for trial, error, and verification, oriented less toward the attainment of certainties than toward the production of new forms of perception. In this sense, his work enters into dialogue with an epistemology of uncertainty, akin to philosophical traditions that understand knowledge as a process of becoming rather than closure.

Manzelli explores interstitial zones, understood as spaces of transit and transformation. These ambiguous areas are not presented as undefined but as potential—sites where categories dissolve, allowing the emergence of hybrid, almost alchemical configurations that reprogram the gaze. Geometry, far from operating as a normative system, appears tense and destabilized. His precarious constructions articulate a crossing between intuition and reason, play and engineering, evoking a universal grammar present in both nature and symbolic thought. Thus, Manzelli’s works do not represent the world but rather transfigure it, activating questions rather than offering closed answers.


Avícola. Escultura magnética. Madera, imanes, laca automotriz y acero. 45 x 25 cm. 2022.


Science and its methods inspire your process. What kinds of parallels do you find between scientific thinking and artistic creation?

Science and art are two disciplines that I believe share a great deal and are undoubtedly deeply interconnected. I am interested in that point of intersection, and although they are often placed in opposition, I think they share a common origin. Both involve a continuous search, a need for answers that stems from curiosity rather than certainty, and that often—or in many cases—leads both artists and scientists into uncomfortable, uncertain positions, pushing them out of their comfort zones. I believe this is a fundamental and very compelling aspect shared by these two disciplines, which in some way define us as human beings.

In this sense, both share experimentation as a core axis of their practice. Trial and error, testing, and the entire process of experimentation are what generate development. In my case, this applies directly to the studio: I experience it as a laboratory where different projects are developed and materials are tested. It is as if one formulates a hypothesis and then puts it to the test—materials, procedures, forms, colors—and outcomes emerge. These results are not meant to be verified, but rather, in art, I believe their function is to generate new modes of perception, new ways of seeing, and new experiences.


Receptor Lunar #01. Ensamble de Madera Reciclada torneada. 102 x 26 x 26 cm. De la serie Fuerza orgánica. 2023.


You work within the interstices between the natural and the artificial, the figurative and the abstract. What interests you about these ambiguous zones, and what kinds of knowledge emerge from them?

I have always been quite restless, and that has led me to immerse myself in different fields and disciplines. I believe there is a special richness in interstitial spaces—in movement back and forth, in circulation between media. These spaces have always drawn my attention: ambiguous places, hybrid zones. There is something of an amphibious logic here—amphibians as entities that carry and transmit information, that share, that cross boundaries and membranes. In my case, this is closely linked to what I understand as freedom, especially at a time marked by categorization, labeling, and a profound distortion of the very concept of freedom.

On another level, more metaphysical in nature, it is within the mixture—within that blending—that the living energy of creating something new appears, which is undoubtedly a fundamental aspect of what it means to be human. It is as if “one thing becomes something else outside the mold.” This interaction is necessary to break structures, to build new ones, to transmute—to undergo something almost alchemical. I believe fixation is the enemy. In a way, ambiguity is what allows us to reprogram our gaze and generate new points of view.


De la serie Naturaleza orgánica. Madera torneada recuperada de podas de sequía y rezagos de construcción. 2025.


Movement, repetition, and sequence appear as visual strategies in your work. What role does seriality play in the generation of meaning?

Movement, repetition, and sequence are very present in my work. I have a long background in animation, and in some way that interest begins to filter into the other disciplines in which I work. Thus, movement also appears in my visual art practice.

Seriality is a way of thinking about time and of introducing a certain narrative and sense of action into the work, while at the same time conditioning the viewer’s experience. It invites the viewer to try to decipher repetition as a kind of progression. I am particularly interested in more abstract forms of narrative. In this type of narrative, where there is no clear figuration, repetition begins to establish a pulse, a “beat” that marks the passage of time. What is interesting, I think, is the realization that repetition is not exactly duplication, and that what seems identical begins to mutate over time, through rhythm, or through its own unfolding history.


De la serie Naturaleza orgánica. Madera torneada recuperada de podas de sequía y rezagos de construcción. 2025.


You work with geometric and constructive systems. What role does geometry play as a symbolic language within your practice?

Geometry is present in my work in multiple forms and dimensions, generating different dynamics. Generally, I tend to put it into crisis, into tension. When one engages closely with my works, it becomes clear that constructions based on imprecise and unstable balance predominate. I am not interested in symmetry or exactness, but rather in a dynamic construction that proposes a situation. I do not conceive of geometry as a rigid system.

I believe this is where a bridge is established between the intuitive and the rational, between playfulness and engineering—those unexpected crossings. At the same time, geometry functions as a code, a language that connects us to a universal grammar present in nature, in fractals, and that undoubtedly refers to symbolism. It is there that an interesting portal opens, where the work begins to re-signify itself and becomes a process of meaning-making external to itself, entirely uncertain. The results of my works are not pieces that represent; rather, I believe they are pieces that transfigure and, in doing so, generate questions.


WIP. Madera torneada recuperada de podas de sequía y rezagos de contrucción. 2022.


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

In terms of planning, it depends greatly on the project and even on the day. Some projects, due to their scale or complexity, require careful planning, especially when they involve the participation of other people. In many cases, planning is undoubtedly essential.

That said, in the projects I do plan, I am always interested in leaving space for improvisation, where chance or the unfolding of the process itself can come into play. I believe this is where interesting things begin to emerge, and it is important not to let them pass by. Personally, I would find it very boring to work on pieces whose outcome I already know in advance. For me, the realization of each work is an uncertain journey; I do not know where it will lead, and I believe that is where its potential lies—not only for me, but also for the work itself and for the viewer’s experience.







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