Iván Forcadell “Remedios Matamoros Fibla”
He is only 25 years old and already counts with over twenty exhibitions. The Catalan artist Iván Forcadell lands now in WE COLLECT with his highly expected first solo show in Madrid where he shows his eccentric and particular pictorial universe about central and rural Spain.
“Art is my way of not dying.” Iván Forcadell (Alcanar, Tarragona, 1993) has lived since childhood among papers, colouring pencils and fabrics, making art his instrument to express himself and a channel to live freely. His work, marked by his life experience, folklore and his decision to face what is considered uncomfortable by the majority, offers a picturesque and iconographic personal landscape of central and rural Spain that is already part, despite his youth, of important collections such as Fundació Lluís Coromina (Girona), Soho House Group (Mumbai, Amsterdam and Barcelona), Fundació Vila Casas (Barcelona) or EINA Foundation (Barcelona), among others.
The work of Iván Forcadell, one of the most promising artists under 30 years old, lands now in WE COLLECT with his highly expected first solo show in the capital where he shows his eccentric and particular pictorial universe. Titled “Remedios Matamoros Fibla” in honor to his grandmother, the great peasant of his land, the exhibition tells through an impressive journey through different mediums – painting, drawing, installation, sculpture, mural, performance, sewing or tapestry, among others – the situation of women in agriculture and the rural world. “I wanted to pay tribute to this historical and fundamental figure in agriculture that has always been women. Constantly hidden, tireless worker but at the same time eternal maid… ”, says the artist.
After working as a fishmonger, waiter and farmer during his time as a student, Forcadell moved from his native Alcanar – a small farmer town located in southern Catalonia – to Barcelona to study Design and Art Direction at the EINA University. “At this point I began to live the art in a more intense and personal way, to make it mine. I discovered that I should work the essence of the work, not the object as such. In a world as hypersaturated and overstimulated as the one we live in, the only thing that I think endures over time is the essence of what you do, rather than a concrete piece. This allows me as an artist to work in different languages to talk about what interests me, not just painting or drawing”. The same goes for the materials, which he obsessively decontextualizes in an attempt to anachronize or perpetuate his constant work in his career: different types of paintings, pencils, polyurethane, textiles and embroidery, irons, wood, cement, gotelé, found objects, papers, antique prints, art deco furniture, surgical material, cross stitch … “everything that stains or gives volume helps me to create”.
In recent years, Forcadell has carried out numerous projects and exhibitions inside and outside Spain, among which stand out solo exhibitions such as “El inicio del Segundo Acto”, Fundació Lluís Coromina, Barcelona, 2019; “Flux Cutting”, Foco Gallery, Lisbon, 2019; “The dream of the rural produces monsters”, Deseo Gallery, Barcelona, 2018; “Garden”, Pilar Riberaygua Gallery, Andorra, 2017; or “Vamos a la Playa”, Eina Foundation, Barcelona, 2016. He has also participated in several group exhibitions such as “Finesterre 44”, La Coruña, 2018; “Gala Contra el Sida (People in Red)”, Barcelona, 2017; “Los Semejantes”, Barcelona, 2017; “Porsche”, Barcelona, 2017; “Le Bath”, Gallery 8 P.M, Barcelona, 2017; or “Barcelona Design Colective”, Barcelona, 2017. In 2017 he collaborated with the fashion brand Teresa Helbig and in 2018 with the fashion designer Anna Cortina, for which he made an intervention in a limited series of accessories. “To better understand my universe, I recommend reading the Ten Commandments.”