Art<35 Banco Sabadell 2016 is a competition called by the School of Fine Arts of the University of Barcelona, organised by the Art<35 Association, and with help from the Trama gallery, Sala Parés and the Banco Sabadell Foundation, aimed at selecting artists to take part in an exhibition focused on young people’s art and give them the opportunity to exhibit their work.

Throughout September, you can visit the Sala Parés in Barcelona and view this exhibition that contains work by ten young artists younger than 35, who have completed their studies or who are currently studying at one of the schools of Fine Arts in Spain and who have completed the first stage of their training.

These artists have been selected by a jury formed of: Ignasi Alballí, artist; Sergi Aguilar, artist and director of the Suñol Foundation (Chairman of the jury); Miquel Molins, Chairman of the Banco Sabadell Foundation; Concha de Aizpuru, of the Juana de Aizpuru gallery in Madrid; Tomas Bañuelos, vice dean of students and career opportunities at the School of Fine Arts of the Complutense University in Madrid; Ferran Barenblit, director of MACBA; José Luis Cueto Lominchar, dean at the School of Fine Arts at the Polytechnic University of Valencia; Joan Anton Maragall, gallerist at the Sala Parés and the Trama Gallery; Frederic Montornés, art critic and exhibitions curator; Mar Redondo Arolas, vice dean of culture at the School of Fine Arts of the University of Barcelona; Natxo Rodríguez Arkaute, vice dean of university extension at the School of Fine Arts at the Basque Country University; and Josep Santacreu Bonjoch, Managing Director of DKV Medical Insurance.

Information on the 10 works and their artists

Yosman Botero is a visual artist from Colombia who stands out due to his fluidity when combining different art forms, techniques and concepts in each of his projects. His work, through the fragmentation of rifles and the creation of new totems, appeals to a new aesthetic image full of symbolism and is reminiscent of the colonization of a state compared to what civilization was in the pre-Columbian era. He recreates works made out of gold by copying the image of a rifle, with the repeated images coming together to form elegant shapes.

Nico Brunet Martí, from Barcelona, shows us some paintings that are the product of his search to find a personal art form to express the effects of the violent and catastrophic bombardment of information to which we are subjected. His works are like large-scale screens dominated by brushstrokes, figures and sketches reminiscent of chaos and destruction.

Ana Císcar is an artist from Valencia who, through her work, explores the value of images and the possible story behind them. In her series ‘Narración y sabotaje’ (Narration and Sabotage), she explores the pressure arising from attributing the idea of a true reflection of reality to documentary photography and contrasting it with the interpretive nature of constructed narration that is associated with the arts. Part of the collection of old photos, from files and the press, which she transfers to plastic arts by breaking down, reformulating and juxtaposing the original blown-up photos. The result is a series of hybrid paintings which, while they maintain an aspect of a true document, have been made into something more ambiguous. The artist’s work on the photos has removed the context from the images and created a lack of continuity which force the viewer to really think about the meaning of what they are seeing.

Manuel Diego Sánchez, from Madrid, shows us a sample of his work on memories of the past and migration. This project uses graphic documents on the Basque diaspora within the EU, resulting in photographs of migrants mixed with simple plastic objects, but which can be interpreted in many different ways.

Borders, 2016 / Pintura acrílica sobre fotografía / 35 x 50 cm

Miguel Marina is an artist from Madrid who sets a limit between pictorial representation and abstraction. They form part of his series ‘La trampa del lobo’ (The wolf’s trap), a project inspired by space and its representation, exploring themes such as scale, distance and light. His work, together with the elements that comprise it, have a different effect depending on how close or far you are from it. The rugged surface and the different characteristics of the materials used, when seen up close become celestial bodies, and become light and space when we move further away.

Guillermo Ros, from Vinalesa (Valencia), focuses on the role of physical and virtual reality in our understanding of the world. The work shown in Art<Banco Sabadell corresponds to two series focusing on direct and mediatised experience, by establishing conceptual relationships between sculptures and images. His work offers a juxtaposition between the object and the image, becoming a complex metaphor on many levels: the replacement of reality with the omnipresence of virtual images, the natural-artificial dichotomy, as well as the reclaiming of a critical outlook as a way of understanding reality through the recovery of direct experience.

José Salguero Llánez, from Madrid, shows us his work in which he mixes narrative resources of illustrations, comic books and cinema. The paintings shown focus on the aggressive nature of the entertainment culture aimed at toddlers and young adults, using popular characters from the world of animation which, in his hand, take on a surprisingly perverse aspect.

Carlos Miguel Sánchez, from Caceres, shows us his work in which he reflects on the nature of artistic objects, the creation process and the role of art. His art includes discarded construction items and biodegradable materials. Tiles, plasterboard and pipes give us the chance to rethink his work in terms of the core attributes of the painting (colour and surface), the drawing (strokes and planes), sculptures and architecture (creation of space), discovering new relationships that shadow the limits between the different art forms in order to create new ones.

Tura Sanz Sanglas, from Ordis (Gerona), gives us ‘Florits’, a series inspired in flowers pressed between the pages of a notebook and the mark that they leave, which she uses to reflect upon the representation of reality. The artist uses the watery and transparent characteristics of watercolours to realistically represent the translucent quality of the petals, as well as the imprint produced the by liquid released during the flower-pressing process. However, she introduces a counterpoint to the plausibility of the paintings when she omits the fold of the notebook to explain the symmetrical projection of the flower. This paradox lends a significant amount of ambiguity to the image.

Isabel Servera, an artist from Majorca, shows us work that is the result a conviction that art has no specific use, it is not essential and it is therefore fully expendable. By removing any importance from the work, the artist becomes free from having to give it any meaning, personality or originality. She can therefore focus on production and on matters related to art, and can experiment with art forms and materials. The repetition of motifs, the use of non-specialised resources and the laborious creation create a dialogue that blurs the limits between crafts, mechanisation and art, placing emphasis on automation.