Inmaculada Salinas. Pressed Out Women
Date: 31 March - 12 June 2011
Curator: Mª Luisa López Moreno
Exhibition Session: The Political Constitution of the Present

The pieces showed by Inmaculada Salinas (Guadalcanal, Sevilla, 1967) have been made in the last three years and grouped in four series whose common feature is the repetitive and processual nature of all the works on paper, starting from a certain subject. Woman as a social subject is the topic of Prensadas, Visión de las vencidas and Espejo. In Como fondo, the artist reflects on the autonomy of painting and also on the role to which it is often reduced: as a decorative object which represents power.

Prensadas (2009).
By means of hundreds of cards showing press pictures, Salinas makes a statistical study about the presence/absence of women in the media.

Como fondo (2010-2011).
Using press cuttings in which outstanding pieces of art serve as a background for different important figures, the artist erases people's identity thus overshadowing their presence and giving prominence to the paintings. Her own monochromatic paintings, that follow an upward chromatic colour scale, prevail over these facts demonstrating the autonomy of painting.

Visión de las vencidas (2008-2009).
The book by the anthropologist Miguel León Portilla, Visión de los vencidos, based on writings by Mexican indigenous, has been the reference for this work. Salinas takes fifty sentences from the book which include the word mujer (woman) or attributes regarding the place of women in society.

Espejo (2008).
The artist repetitively writes the word mujer (woman) in forty white cards therefore doing a formal repetitive exercise. Besides, she uses her left hand for writing half of them thus provoking visual tension and changes of rhythm in the whole of the card.