100% female art
Traditionally, the relationship of women and the art world has been limited to the role of a muse and has been closely linked to sexuality, motherhood or religion. Few are the portraits that illustrate other ways of being a woman.
However, along with freedom and equality, difference is one of the great struggles of the women’s movement. This is the underlying concept of the Mujeres x Mujeres (Women x Women) exhibition.
After a long experience working with illustrators to “tattoo” the walls of the firm’s premises with giant murals, designing a lifestyle collection of accessories or publishing the annual calendar, Estudio Sancal has curated a themed exhibition about diversity. 5 female artists have portrayed different ways of being a woman from a more contemporary attitude.
“With this mini-collection our intention was to overcome the figure of a muse to be an active part of our own vision of the world. That is why we asked female artists to illustrate their point of view on topics that concern us such as happiness, transcendence, fraternity, power, creativity, freedom, reflection, experience, serenity and even eccentricity” explains Esther Castaño-López.
Estudio Sancal has created closer ties between the theme and the use of colour, since each of the artists was assigned a feminine facet and a palette.
Spanish creatives such as Ana Galváñ, Mar Hernández (Malota), Carla Fuentes, Clara Iris & Elena Castaño (Elekna) ask us to contemplate powerful, extra-terrestrial, creative, immortal, expert, happy, friends, free, thoughtful and serene women. You can find more information about their works in this post.
Each of the 10 illustrations have been reproduced in small series of 50 Fine Arts copies with the highest quality paper, Matt Fiber Hahnemühle 200 grams, printed with the Gicleè technique, which provides a maximum level of detail and guarantees the stability of the colours. All of them are numbered and signed by the authors and includes a certificate of authenticity. Find them in our digital Shop!
Ana Galvañ (with Spanish letter “ñ” at the end of her surname) combines her role as an illustrator with her passion as a comic book author, a discipline in which female work is limited and rare. Ana is strong and discreet and her characters, as real in their attitude as they are surreal in their appearance, present a little bit of herself, of her experiences and way of understanding the world.
For her Illustrated Women she has worked with a palette in warm tones and another in cold colours, with which she did not feel comfortable at first, as she confesses, although she is very satisfied with the result. Her women are resounding, strong and brave and the palette used reinforce those values. The lines define and the raster backdrop give volume to her characters.
Mar Hernández, Malota, is a Doctor in Fine Arts. She combines her passion for illustration and design with teaching at the School of Fine Arts, where she not only teaches but also shares her experience and admiration for the art world. Her personal style is versatile and flexible, adapting to the particularities of different fields such as editorial, advertising or audio-visual.
Malota is a multifaceted artist. Her work goes beyond illustration to explore other artistic disciplines such as pottery. From her own imagination she creates scenes as powerful as they are calm, as dreamlike as they are positive and categorical. Her imprint is very present in her Illustrated Women, with the use of a calm colour palette, her drawings are free of stereotypes and her simplicity is almost naive.
Elekna is Elena Castaño-López, Bachelor in Fine Arts. Cheerful, playful and extroverted, her work as Art Director of Sancal is her most well-known role, where she gives free rein to her expressiveness and creativity with a visual language in which humour and colour are constant elements.
However, her work as an illustrator is her most unusual and delicate facet. The fusion of different techniques and a soft colour palette where black delimits and defines, her work presents Illustrated Women who are honest, sensitive and thoughtful. The figures, which may seem unfinished, present different perspectives of the same woman, which makes them even more charming.
Carla Fuentes is a cartoonist and illustrator. She studied the first cycle of Fine Arts and has a degree in Fashion Design from the EASD. Although drawing has been a part of her life from a very young age, she wanted to be a tailor. After taking her first steps in the world of textile printing and serigraphy, she soon abandoned her young passion to focus fully on painting.
Her fun and joyful personality contrasts with her taciturn characters whose appearance does not correspond to the standards of beauty imposed by today’s society. Her Illustrated Women present contemporary attitudes through her personal style, honest and without any artifice. Although their gestures and expressions are distant, even disturbing, they are also attractive due to their attitude towards life.
Clara-Iris Ramos is an illustrator, graphic artist and professor of visual storytelling and editing at the Grau en Arts i Disseny at Escola Massana. She collaborates with La Directa or Visual magazines, together with cultural initiatives with social approach, such as cooperatives and associations. Her interests in print graphic culture and publishing has focused her doctoral research, as well as other collaborations, lectures and workshops.
Although Clara may appear shy at first sight, her visual narrative is strong, impactful, and committed. Her style is characterized by the use of uniform colour blocks that define simple yet expressive figures. Her Illustrated Women defend noble causes and basic rights, sometimes relegated to a second level, such as freedom or friendship.
Together with this exhibition, which is part of the Museo Collection, Sancal has presented its latest range of sofas, low lounge chairs and accent pieces. If you want to know more about the new products, click here.
