Art
Irene López de Castro
Instagram:@irenelopezdecastroart
Dossier of the exhibition “Les guardianes de Tombuctú” in Barcelona
Madrid-born artist, parents coming from Málaga. Graduate on Painting by the Faculty of Beaux-Arts of the Complutense University of Madrid (Spain), in 1991.
In 1989,still being a student of Beaux-Arts, Irene travelled to Mali for the first time. As she fell in love with Sahel, she travelled many times there, devoting her life as an artist to serve as a cultural bridge and showing the best side o those places and their people, creating a pictorial universe which she has taken beyond our borders: Italy, France, Korea and Mali.
As she loves to keep her travel logs, her notes have inspired great canvases.
Her figurative painting cannot be considered realistic but oneiric, close to luminism and with references to the 19th c. masters.
Her contemporary technique plays with glazes and textures reminding the Italian fresco paintings. In her last stage, she merges with the African technique of bogolán, or clay painting from Mali, which her Malian friends initiated her into.
Among her individual exhibitions stand out The River of Life, memories of the Niger River, at the Cultural Centre Casa de Vacas, Retiro Park in Madrid (October 2019). Tombouctu Women, at the Beaux-Arts Museum of Cordoba (Spain), in March 2019. Il Cuore dil Mali, at San Lorenzo Gallery, in Florence (Italy), in 2018, and Au coeur du Mali,at the National Museum of Mali, organized by the Spanish Embassy in Bamako, Mali, in 2017.
Her most recent exhibitions are “Les Guardianes de Tombuctú” at the Real Círculo Artístico de Barcelona between October and November 2020, organized by GRAM Wilhelm, here you can see more information about the exhibition and “Mujeres del Sahel” at Casa Árabe in Madrid between May and July 2021.
