RITAURSO Artopiagallery presents the double solo show of Spanish artists Irma Álvarez-Laviada and Miren Doiz for the first time invited to exhibit together and invest the gallery spaces. Both the artists develop their researches starting from Painting and taking it out from its traditional space of expression to the materials, occupying the space in its three dimensions. The objects used, often recycled elements such as plastic bags, cardboard cut-outs or wood fragments, are intended as basic tools for pictorial or sculptural compositions. Irma Álvarez-Laviada’s work reflects on the materiality of Painting by questioning the ways of viewing, experience and understanding the art and its system. The physical absence of the work (when this leaves the space such as the artist’s studio) is the creative resource of her research, an opportunity to think of new configurations and possibilities expressed in the use of elements such as envelopes and sheets of plastic and cardboard - materials traditionally used for packaging, archiving and handling of the wor- ks. The transitory movement captured by the “negative” space temporarily occupied by the “positive” artwork acquires a new status, and the revealing materials establish a relationship with the exhibition space while maintaining their independence.

Miren Doiz has also developed a research aimed at subverting the traditional means of Painting, exploring and expanding its limits to different media: photography, installation and sculpture. By taking the space and the forms of perception at the centre of the work, her pictorial gesture integrates the places dissolving in them and transforming in an almost invisible way. Minimal and essential, her a-pictorial intervention shows the space in its original appearance and overcome the boundary between what was there before and what comes after. Two-dimensional painting becomes three-dimensional, deconstructs and reconstructs through objects and spaces to incorporate them together with the observer.

The exhibition One Thing is presents the work of the two artists fluidly and homogenously without imposing a clear distinction between the expressive space of one and the other, which expands in unison on the two exhibition floors. After the exhibitions at the Spanish Academy in Rome, Irma Álvarez-Laviada in 2011 and Miren Doiz in 2018, and for her also at the Cervantes Institute in Milan in 2008, this is their first double solo show in an Italian gallery.

Irma Álvarez-Laviada (Gijón, 1978) has a degree in Fine Arts from the University of Vigo. Currently her work can be seen in the Fundación Cerezales Antonino y Cinia FCAYC (León), where he exposes individually his la- test work entitled The space between things (14 april-14 July). In 2012 she obtained the Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Spain in Rome and in 2014 the Scholarship of the House of Velázquez. In 2017 she received one of the eight scholarships for artistic projects of the Marcelino Botín Foundation. In 2017-2018 the French Ministry of Culture (Culturefrance) has awarded her a scholarship for Residence at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris. Her work has been awarded with different prizes and she has participated in numerous group shows. During the year 2018 she shows the Reversibility and Utopia project awarded by the Marcelino Botín Foundation at the Botín Center in Santander. In 2017 she exhibits the solo Something to see, something to hide in the RAC Foundation (Pontevedra) and carries out a specific projectThe Hejduk Line, in the City of Culture of Galicia. In 2015 she presents a solo project at LISTE International Fair in Basel with the Agustina Ferreyra Gallery.

Miren Doiz (Pamplona, 1980) has a degree in Fine Arts from the University of the Basque Country, lives and works in Madrid. In 2015 she was awarded the DKV Prize in the Estampa Contemporary Art Fair and she was a finalist in the Pepe Estévez Art Competition, in 2014 she received a grant from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, in 2010 she was selected for the Biennale of Photography Puri cación García, in 2009 in the Archivo de Creadores de Matadero, Madrid by David Barro, and in 2008 in the visual arts competition Injuve. She received grants from the Government of Navarra (2006), second prize for Gatherings of Young Artists of Navarra (2005) and second prize for the Young Artists Hall of Pamplona (2003). Her most recent solo exhibitions include: ARCO Lateral, Lateral Restaurant, Plaza de Santa Ana, Madrid (2014); Gabinete Estampa, Foro Sur, Galería Moisés Pérez de Albéniz (2013); Visto y no visto, Galería Moisés Pérez de Albéniz in Pamplona (2012); Montar, desmontar, Horno de la Ciudadela, Pamplona (2012) and Panorama 10, Intervention, Casa del Almirante de Tudela (2010).