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SOLEDAD
5 Apr - 30 May
SOLEDAD
Ángeles Agrela
5APR / 30MAY · 2025
SOLEDAD
Ángeles Agrela
Ángeles Agrela opens her fourth solo exhibition at the YUSTO / GINER gallery, with which she has maintained a close collaboration for a decade. This new series of works explores portraiture as a constantly evolving genre, offering a contemporary and symbolic perspective on identity and representation.
“Portraiture allows the viewer to identify with the image of another human being, transcending barriers of gender, time, or place,” explains the artist. In this exhibition, her work continues to challenge the traditional gaze on the representation of femininity in art, dismantling established visual codes and connecting with a diverse audience. “Many women have told me that they feel my works as their own, that the narrative resonates with them on an intimate level. But there is also a male audience that interacts with the ambiguity of these portraits from different perspectives, yet with the same intensity.”
One of the most distinctive elements of her work is hair, which in this series takes on a strong symbolic weight. Beyond its visual impact, it becomes a narrative device that reflects power and self-esteem, but also oppression and disappearance. “Sometimes hair is a symbol of strength; other times, it seems to suffocate the character. It can be a camouflage tool, allowing the figure to dissolve into its surroundings—though paradoxically, this makes it even more unsettling,” she notes.
Accompanying this exploration, the artist plays with highly decorative backgrounds, references to contemporary fashion, and subtle shifts in facial features that introduce a sense of unreality. “Each piece has its own story and development,” she says. “Hair is power and guilt, homogenization and individuality, obligation and freedom. In some cultures, it even represents danger. It is an extension of the body, an inescapable part of identity, and I am interested in exploring it as a metaphor for these tensions.”
We look forward to seeing you!
About the artist:
Ángeles Agrela (b. 1966, Úbeda, Spain) has resided in Napoles, La Habana, and Berlin, and currently lives and works in Granada. Her recent works seek to conceptualize the role of women within the History of Art by creating a contemporary representative view.
Following this theme, the key feature of her drawings becomes the hair, which has important cultural and historical connotations within representation of the feminine. She uses the symbolic charge and communicatory capacity of hair to create an exaggerated mass that often substitutes the face or hides it completely, as a playful way to divert attention away from the face and towards how women choose to represent themselves.
