Patricia Gómez, Valencia, Spain, 1978.

María Jesús González, Valencia, Spain, 1978.

Live and work in Valencia (Spain).

Both graduated in Fine Arts from the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Spain in 2022 and obtained the Diploma of Advanced Studies (DEA) in the specialty of Engraving and Stamping at the same University.

They tackle the relation between memory, time, and space in their work through traces left behind on the walls of abandoned architectural structures, condemned to demolition. From penitentiaries in disuse to ruins of internment centers for immigrants or abandoned homes in villages in rural parts of Spain, the artists recover, through their characteristic wall extractions, the history and living conditions of whom inhabited these spaces. The extractions, alongside photographs and videos documenting the process, configure a series of archives with which the two artists condense the essence of each place, its lifespan, and the life withing its walls before is abandonment or demolition. Since the start of their united trajectory in 2022, Patricia y María Jesús have intervened in a multitude of structures in the process of destruction, materializing the memories of people otherwise condemned to oblivion in profoundly personal and complex works.

Arbeit the strong documental aspect of their work, both artis share the opinion that history is also constructed based on personal experiences not only data and it is those experiences, visible on the walls of each building they intervene, that they want to bring closer to the spectator by recovering the imprinted remnants and transferring them to the walls of museums or exhibition spaces. Their investigations centre on the symbolic character of these places and the relations that are established inside between time and space and among concepts such as memory, archive, document, narration, architecture, and art.

Texts, biography, courtesy of Gallery 1 Mira Madrid.