My name is Edén Barrena and I am a visual artist working with drawing. I was born in Badajoz (Extremadura, Spain) in 1991. I live between my hometown and Bucharest.

Royal College of Art > Master of Arts in Printmaking
Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Stuttgart > Erasmus scholarship
Universidad Complutense de Madrid > Fine Arts BA

Artist-in-residence at Sounds Like a Book (Sona, Brasov, Romania), Chander Haat (Kolkata, India), A.Farm (Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam), Bananafish Books (Shanghai, China), Swatch Art Peace Hotel (Shanghai, China), Fundación Antonio Gala (Córdoba, Spain).

Prizes: Open Portfolio Prize 2016 (Spain), Graduate Print Awards, 2nd prize (UK), Villiers David Travel Award (UK), Royal College of Art Bursary (UK), Ruta Quetzal BBVA 2008 (Spain), Ruta Ibérica Caja Duero 2007 (Spain).

 

* Complete CV with exhibitions and publications upon request *

 
 
 

I am interested in the relationship between the self and the other, and in the estrangement and conflicts caused by this encounter. I reflect on the edges of subjectivity, travel, discovery and representation of the unknown through the exercise of drawing and the action of repetition (seriality, copy, insistence, reproduction, obsession, tradition, study).

The outcome of my practice is an ever-growing archive of small/invisible gestures we found embedded in specific cultural frames: these customs, superstitions or forms of heritage that are on the verge of disappearance. And yet, they have made all the way to our present, like a miraculous long thread, to bond us with who inhabited the world before we got here. 

A preference for humble materials and portable formats allows me to generate a sense of intimacy within my work, while enabling my production despite not owning a studio, or when I am on the move. Travelling is a key element of my creative process because it positions me in the roles of the outsider and the other, experimenting first-hand the displacement of the foreigner.

 

 

21 October - 5 November 2022 > Diez artistas por los derechos humanos
Group exhibition at Ángeles Baños gallery (Badajoz, Spain) organised by Amnesty International.

9 - 13 November 2022 > Polycopies
My book Some Notes on the Use of Textiles in Sona will be displayed during Polycopies (Paris, France) at Galeria Posibila's stand. Polycopies is an artist books fair.

10 - 19 November 2022 > Threads Exhibition
Group show at Galeria Posibila (Bucarest, Romania), in which you will be able to see the books we produced during Sounds Like a Book artist residency.

 

 

eden.barrena@gmail.com

Instagram: @eden.barrena

 

 

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