Fina Miralles

Fina Miralles is one of the most significant artists in the field of Catalan visual arts. She began to develop her work in the context of the Franco dictatorship, in a hostile and limiting environment, in which censorship controlled any form of expression under moral impositions. The work of Fina Miralles broke with the academicist proposals of the time and with the established forms of behaviour, redefining the concept of the artistic act. Her production has been ascribed to conceptual art, Land Art and feminism. However, his complexity goes beyond these labels.

 

In this issue we present a sample of her Fotoaccions, a set of photographs documenting two series of actions. Relación del cuerpo con elementos naturales are sequences of images showing how Fina Miralles' body is progressively covered with different natural elements until it is completely hidden: as if she were visiting herself from head to toe in a dress made of stones, earth, grass or straw. These actions highlight the connections between the human body and the different materials. On the other hand, the relationship between the body and natural elements in everyday actions are images that reproduce some of the actions that make up our daily lives: breathing, looking, washing, eating, walking or smoking. The images constitute a sort of photographic register or diary, a repertoire of everyday acts selected by the artist. Photographs that are made through gesture and action. A performance or performative image that creates and creates through a self-referential and constitutive statement of reality.