Saelia Aparicio

ÁVILA SPAIN 1982

Saelia Aparicio is a London-based Spanish artist working across drawing, sculpture and installation. The practice examines the entanglement of bodies, environments and systems of care, constructing speculative worlds where human and non-human forms cohabit and transform. Within the work, the body operates as both altar and wound: a site where suffering and joy converge, and where transformation unfolds between the everyday and the ritual. Working with found and re-used materials—including glass, steel, wood and prosthetic fragments—the work foregrounds the physical and symbolic charge of matter. Often marked by prior use, these elements are reconfigured into hybrid forms that blur distinctions between the organic and the constructed.

Her work centres on processes of adaptation, dependency and survival, with the figure of the parasite as a recurring device—understood not only as extraction, but as a mode of coexistence reflecting broader ecological and social relations. Across drawings and sculptural installations, bodies appear in states of transition—merging, flowering or wilting—suggesting both vulnerability and resistance. A tension between attraction and unease runs throughout, as seductive surfaces give way to more disquieting undercurrents. The practice reflects on how bodies negotiate unstable environments, proposing forms of coexistence that are fragile, improvised and generative.

Selected exhibitions include A Joyful Parasite, Southwark Park Gallery and the Burton at Bideford, UK (2026); A Joyful Parasite, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK (2025); The Oracle, Ljubljana Biennial, Ljubljana, Slovenia (2025); Trust Issues, Kornfeld Galerie, Berlin, Germany (2025); Les fleurs du mal, Bold Tendencies, London, UK (2024); Alice, Still in Wonderland, Cylinder, Seoul, South Korea (2024); Liquid Intelligence, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, Spain (2023); Trickster Figures, MK gallery, Milton Keynes, UK (2023); Paraíso extraño, MUSAC, León, Spain (2022); and A Sentient Space, Gallery FUMI, London, UK (2022). Her work is included in the collections of TBA21, Austria; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León, León, Spain; Odunpazarı Modern Museum, Eskişehir, Turkey; Arts Council England, UK; Fundación Montemadrid, Madrid, Spain; and DKV Collection, Spain.