Marta Marcé: New Work

Exhibitions

31 March - 20 May 2001

Marta Marcé’s was born Vilafranca, Barcelona, in 1972 she studied in Barcelona and the Royal College of Art, graduating in 2000. She was selected for Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2000.

Marcé literally transposes the basic structure of board games and computergames as a starting point for her brightly coloured abstract paintings. She setsclear rules for each one of her paintings. She follows these rules until thegame terminates, which is when she has decided that the painting is finished.Though she is governed by strict criteria, the resulting works are not totally conceptual.

The rules set by Marcé allow chance to intervene. She manipulates the unexpected in her paintings by using dice and personal decisions to question the rules as the painting progresses. Marcé´s paintings envelop the idea of expanding the different options of a basic grid as well as enriching it with chance and colour. The grid and concept of leaving things to chance mirrors the realities of Marcé’s life. Marcé’s paintings display clearly the set of rules that intervened on its making, and the exact places where those rules were broken. Marcé uses different types of paint and experiments with colour and texture inspired by colours found in her everyday life. Her paintings thus speak about process, freedom and beauty. She is currently working as an artist in residence as part of the Picker Fellowship at Kingston University 2000-2001.