Carmen Calvo

CARMEN CALVO (Valencia, 1950).
Untitled, 1995.
Signed.
Mixed media on paper.
Measurements: 43 x 32 cm; 57 x 45 cm (frame).
At the beginning of the eighties Carmen Calvo centered her work in the material experimentation on the canvas, managing to make her works oscillate between the field of sculpture and painting. In these works, such as the present one, small adhesions in relief coexist with color in an apparently random way. These series were inspired by writing and music, so that their composition is based on a harmonic order.
Carmen Calvo studied at the Schools of Arts and Crafts and Fine Arts in Valencia, and graduated in advertising in 1970. She would later broaden her training thanks to scholarships from the Ministry of Culture (1980), the Casa de Velázquez in Madrid (1983-85) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for her residence in Paris (1985-92). During these years Calvo began to be recognized, receiving distinctions such as the I LaSalle Seiko Painting Prize of Barcelona (1985), the Alfons Roig of the Diputación Valenciana (1989), a scholarship in the I Biennial Martínez Guerricabeitia of the University of Valencia (1989), and the selection for the XLVII Biennial of Venice (1997). The artist had begun her exhibition activity in 1969, taking part in a group show held at the Círculo Universitario de Valencia. She made her individual debut in 1976 at the Temps gallery in her native city, and since then she has shown her work individually in various cities in Spain and the United States, as well as in other countries in Europe, America and Africa. Works by Carmen Calvo can currently be seen in art institutions, museums and private collections around the world, including the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Reina Sofia in Madrid, the Marugame Hirai in Kobe, the MACBA in Barcelona, the Fonds National d'Art Contemporain in Paris, the IVAM in Valencia, the Chase Manhattan Bank Collection in New York, etc.