Cristina Garrido (Madrid, 1986) explores the historical relationship between painting and geography and considers how our relationship with the landscapes in which we grow up shape our way of being in the world. Inspired by the celebrated quip by Jorge Luis Borges, ‘Local colour is a foreign invention [it emerges from others looking at us, not from what we are]’, Garrido questions the possibility of discovering a place’s true local colour.
The show is set up as a multidisciplinary installation which brings together an extensive set of pieces, including fragments of pictorial depictions of the sky from the sixteenth century until today, which have been grouped together according to geographic regions. They form a colour archive which condenses the experiences of artists facing different landscapes over the centuries.
Addressing themes like identity, colonialism, trade, nationalism, globalisation and climate change, Garrido seeks to transcend political boundaries and highlight similarities in the human experience connected to specific landscapes and climates.
Cristina Garrido (b. 1986, Madrid, Spain) is an artist based in Madrid. Having studied Fine Arts at the Complutense University of Madrid (2004-2009) and at Camberwell College of Arts (2007-2008), she obtained an MFA at the Wimbledon College of Art (2010-2011). She has been awarded by the Fundació “la Caixa” Grant for Postgraduate studies in Great Britain, received the prize Generación 2015 Proyectos de Arte Fundación Montemadrid and has been awarded with the the XV Arco Comunidad de Madrid Prize for Young Artist 2018 and the Fundación Botín Visual Arts Grant 2017-2018. Her work has been exhibited internationally in European and Latin American countries, with shows in the CASS Sculpture Foundation, the British Museum, Centro Botín, Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo and Fundación DIDAC, among others. Her work is included in the collection of Fundació MACBA, Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo (CA2M), Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Privatstiftung and The British Museum, among others.
