“I look for the freedom that allows my painting to be everything. In a world where painting is too theorized I want to bring the anti-theory of its freedom.
I explore this desire of liberty approaching each work in a different way, knowing that paintings have the right to be what the painter wants them to be. In this sense I am motivated to search for a space of purity outside social constraints.”
–Cristina de Miguel
The freedom de Miguel grants herself in the studio is refreshing in the wake of the systemic geometric abstraction, softened geometry, and limited color palettes that have been dominating popular painting trends in New York for the past few years. Her paintings are unapologetically giant-sized, with rich striking primaries, visible finger trails, and subtly layered meaning. Figurative elements are always present, but often seem to serve more as vehicles for painterly abstraction than for specific narrative.
Complicated and simple, ecstatic and meditative; this work is emphatically ambiguous, and exactly what it is.
Cristina de Miguel (b. 1987, Seville, Spain) is a painter living and working in Brooklyn, NY. She recently returned from a residency at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine and received her MFA from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn in 2012.
More of Cristina’s work can be seen at Freight + Volume in The Decline and Fall of the Art World, Part II: The other 99% opening September 12, 2013.
Image courtesy of the artist
Cuchifritos is FREE to the public and handicap accessible. Located inside Essex Street Market at the south end nearest Delancey.
Cuchifritos Gallery + Project Space is a program of Artists Alliance Inc., a 501c3 not for profit organization located on the Lower East Side of New York City within the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center. Cuchifritos is supported in part by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. This program is made possible by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. We thank the following for their generous support: Foundation for Contemporary Arts, New York City Economic Development Corporation and individual supporters of Artists Alliance Inc. Special thanks go to our team of dedicated volunteers, without whom this program would not be possible.