Ángela Abuja Miranda

(b. 1998, Madrid, Spain)

Pero no podemos simplemente sentarnos y mirar nuestras heridas para siempre, 2024
But We Cannot Sit Here and Look at Each Other’s Wounds Forever
Painting: watercolour, gouache, ink, oil paint, wax and ceramics

Shallow Heart Lonely Hunter (esto no eres tú pero tiene una foto tuya), 2024
Shallow Heart Lonely Hunter (This Is Not You but It Has a Photo of You)
Sculpture: wax and oil paint

Will we be able to recover from the pains we carry? Or will we just stay here forever, recreating ourselves on them? These are questions that Ángela Abuja Miranda, with a non-traditional use of materials and techniques, tries to answer with her work. Through impossible colours and representations of the body, the artist creates a dialogue between pain and desire. Her work in the exhibition consists of two parts, a painting and a sculpture.

The painting Pero no podemos simplemente sentarnos y mirar nuestras heridas para siempre [But We Cannot Sit Here and Look at Each Other’s Wounds Forever] references Sandro Botticelli’s painting Scenes from The Story of Nastagio degli Onesti from 1483, which in turn pictures a story from The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio. Giving a new vision of the characters, Abuja Miranda unfolds a tale of self-destruction and generational trauma.

With the sculpture Shallow Heart Lonely Hunter (esto no eres tú pero tiene una foto tuya) [Shallow Heart Lonely Hunter (This Is Not You but It Has a Photo of You)], she touches upon the constant human need for desire, like an inextinguishable fire in the chest.

‘With redemption through love, the work wants to invite the viewer to reflect and let their feelings go, whatever their background or backstory. Because it is never too late to let go. Because we cannot sit here and look at each other’s wounds forever.’

Interview with Ángela Abuja Miranda