Javier Arce

Javier Arce (Santander, 1973) Has a degree with Honors in Fine Arts at the Basque Country University and received his Master in Sculpture from the Wimbledon School of Fine Art. Arce has been artist-in-residence at the ISCP in New York. He was awarded by Marcelino Botín Foundation in 2006 and was recipient of the Leonardo Grant by BBVA Foundation in 2018. Recent institutional shows include ¡Bon Hiver! Pinturas estacionais, Fundación DIDAC; Desde la naturaleza, Sala Robayera, 2023; Marès….un contrato natural; CCA Kunsthalle Andratx, 2022; Sobre cómo puede flotar una uva en el océano, Centro de Arte Pepe Espaliú, 2019; Orden Natural, Centro de Arte Alcobendas, 2017. His work is included in numerous collections such as la de Fundación Marcelino Botín, ARTIUM, IVAM, Museo de Bellas Artes de Santander, MUSAC, La Caixa, CAB or  La Caixa Foundation Contemporary Art Collection.

The work of Javier Arce is characterized by his special attention to drawing, especially in the extension of this discipline to new territories and also the search and investigation of its specificity in the general field of contemporary artistic creation. But his work also addresses the field of video in cases where the project needs a broader and more explicit narrative, as well as installation, a field in which he has been insisting in recent years. Recently, the artist locates geographically and thematically his work in a shepherd’s cabin in the mountains of Cantabria, where he presents a lucid relationship between the local and the global, the personal and the political, between the natural landscape and contemporary conflicts and, in short, between the individual desire and the collective impulse.