Iván Forcadell

He is only 25 years old and already has more than twenty exhibitions. The Catalan artist Iván Forcadell now lands at Río & Meñaka with his long-awaited first individual exhibition 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 he was little among papers, colored pencils and fabrics, making art his instrument to express himself and a channel to live freely. His work, marked by his life experience, his folklore and his decision to face what the majority considers uncomfortable, offers a personal, picturesque and iconographic landscape of central and rural Spain that is already part, despite his youth, of important collections such as that of the Lluís Coromina Foundation (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 of age, now lands at Río & Meñaka with his long-awaited first individual exhibition in the capital where he shows his eccentric and particular pictorial universe. Titled “Remedios Matamoros Fibla” in honor of his grandmother, the great peasant of her land, the exhibition narrates through an impressive journey through different media - 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 who has always been women. Constantly hidden, tireless worker but at the same time eternal servant…” says the artist.

After working as a fishmonger, waiter and farmer during his student years, Forcadell moved from his native Alcanar - a small agricultural town located in the south of Catalonia - to Barcelona to study Design and Art Direction at the EINA University. “At that moment I began to experience art in a more intense and personal way, to make it mine. I discovered that I had to work on 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 I think lasts over time is the essence of what you do, more than a specific 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 happens with the materials, which he obsessively decontextualizes in an attempt to anachronize or perpetuate the constant work of his career: different types of paints, pencils, polyurethane, textiles and embroidery, plates, wood, cement, gotelé, found objects, papers. , antique engravings, art deco furniture, surgical materials, cross stitch... “everything that dyes or gives volume helps me create.”

In recent years, Forcadell has carried out numerous projects and exhibitions inside and outside Spain, among which individual exhibitions such as “The Beginning of the Second Act”, 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 “Let's go to the Beach”, Eina Foundation, Barcelona, 2016. He has also participated in several group exhibitions such as “Finesterre 44”, La Coruña, 2018; “Gala Against AIDS (People in Red)”, Barcelona, 2017; "The Similars", Barcelona, 2017; “Porsche”, Barcelona, 2017; “Le Bath”, Gallery 8pm, Barcelona, 2017; or “Barcelona Design Collective”, Barcelona, 2017. In 2017 she collaborated with the fashion brand Teresa Helbig and in 2018 with the fashion designer Anna Cortina, for whom she carried out an intervention in a limited series of accessories. "To better understand my universe, I recommend reading the Ten Commandments."