CRISTINA IGLESIAS
San Sebastián,(Spain) 1956 

Between 1977 and 1979 she studied drawing and ceramics in Barcelona, and then between 1980 and 1982 she lived in London while she studied at the Chelsea School of Art. In 1983 she took part in the exhibition La imagen del animal, and in 1984 her first exhibition was presented at the Galería Cómicos in Lisbon and then at the Galería Juana de Aizpuru in Madrid (1985). Her early work initially showed contrasts between coloured cement and iron, and then gradually changed and acquired a greater architectural sense of space. During that period her work was presented at the Capc Musée d’Art Contemporain in Bordeaux (1987), the Museo de Bellas Artes in Málaga, the Galería Cómicos (1986 and 1990) and the Galería Marga Paz (1987 and 1990). In the early nineties she began to work with semi-architectural sculptures in which labyrinthine, luminous spaces were generated by the use of alabaster and by the interplay between the sculpture and the wall between concrete and plant shapes. These pieces were presented in 1983 at the Biennale di Venezia, for which she was selected together with Tàpies, and the Galerie Konrad Fischer in Düsseldorf in 1984. That year she received a commission to create a group of open-air sculptures on the Lofoten islands in Norway, work in which she conversed with the natural environment that contained them. Plant motifs continued to form part of her iconography during the second half of the nineties, as in Untitled. Eucalyptus Leaves, 1994-96, and Untitled. Bamboo Forest, 1995-97. At the same time new motifs appeared, such as La celosía (The Lattice), 1997, while she continued to experiment with materials –alabaster, metal, concrete, tapestry or glass. During this period she also made works consisting of metal panels photosilkscreened with images of tree-filled landscapes and models for her sculptures. In 1996 her work was shown at the Galería DV in San Sebastián, in 1997 at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, and in 1998 at the Palacio de Velázquez in Madrid.