Ángela de la Cruz

With these words, Ángela de la Cruz introduces Bulto, her first exhibition in Mexico at the Travesía Cuatro gallery. A title that, as the artist suggests, hides more than it reveals at first glance, inviting a deep reflection on painting and its dialogue with space. Each ‘bulto’ evokes a latent presence, a truth that is hinted at from the surface of the canvas, laden with echoes ranging from the anthropomorphic to the mysterious.

Ángela de la Cruz (La Coruña, 1965) is one of the most prominent figures in contemporary art. Her move to London in her youth, inspired by the vibrant post-punk music scene, marked the beginning of a career that would challenge the boundary between painting and sculpture. A decisive moment in her career occurred in her London studio when, in a fit of frustration, she hit a canvas, deforming it. Far from being a destructive act, this gesture revealed a new dimension: the canvas acquired body, opening a three-dimensional path for painting. Her innovative vision earned her a nomination for the prestigious Turner Prize in 2010, consolidating her as an internationally renowned artist.

De la Cruz’s artistic exploration has focused on dismantling traditional painting to give it a physical presence and vulnerability. Her art is an intimate journey through matter: from the iconic gesture of hitting and breaking canvases, transforming the accident into a “body” with history and an echo of trauma, to freeing the fabric from its stretcher in works like Deflated (2009-ongoing), where the canvas collapses, a flaccid skin that breathes.

This investigation into fragility extends to her Homeless (1996) series, where canvases surrender, bodies devoid of skeleton, and Clutter (2002-2005), where she compresses canvases and objects into sculptural masses that whisper stories of memory and excess. This evolution culminates in the Bulto (2025) series, her most recent work, where the artist traces a different path: she abandons accident to embrace deliberate construction. The tension, far from being fortuitous, is presented to the viewer with a material honesty that is almost questioning. Formally, De la Cruz dialogues with the minimalist heritage, using the form of the painting and the power of monochrome as foundations. But here, deconstruction transforms into an act of assemblage. The pieces are composed of visible layers of canvas, meticulously painted in acrylic. The tension, a constant echo in her work, no longer arises from a hidden interior. It is, on the contrary, the result of subtle engineering: a metal bolt, alien to pictorial tradition, pierces and compresses the superimposed layers. This gesture of constriction concentrates force, sculpting a topography of folds and wrinkles. The work does not hide its essence; it reveals it.

De la Cruz, with Bulto, transcends the metaphor of the wounded body to investigate the logic of the assembled body. Not only does she blur the boundaries between painting and sculpture, but she also delves into a territory where the work itself reflects on its own existence. This exhibition is the affirmation of an artist at the height of her language, capable of finding renewed and powerful eloquence, not in breakage, but in the subtle and deliberate tension of assemblage.

–Luz Massot