Rosa Amorós

Rosa Amorós Bernadó studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Barcelona and at the Escola Massana, where she also taught between 1971 and 2005.

Her artistic activity began with her participation in the Joan Miró Prize in 1967 and 1968. From 1976 onwards, René Metras took an interest in her work, initiating a fifteen-year period of continuous exhibitions at his gallery in Barcelona. In 1987 she took part in Art Triangle, a workshop directed by Anthony Caro at the Casa de la Caritat (Barcelona), where a clear evolution in her work —both conceptual and formal— became evident. This evolution was consolidated in 1991 with the works created at the International Ceramics Studio in Kecskemét (Hungary) and in 1992 for the opening of the European Ceramic Work Centre in ‘s-Hertogenbosch (the Netherlands). Her works have been exhibited, among other places, at Arts Santa Mònica in Barcelona, the “La Caixa” Foundation (Madrid, Barcelona and Palma), Lo Pati (Amposta), the National Tile Museum (Lisbon), the Nakatomi Museum of Contemporary Art (Japan) and the National Museum of History (Taipei, Taiwan). She is represented in numerous public and private collections such as those of the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA), the Barcelona Ceramics Museum, the Banco Sabadell Foundation, the Vila Casas Foundation, the Ceramics Museum (Avilés), the Welle Foundation (Paderborn, Germany) and the Antonio Pérez Foundation (Cuenca). She received grants from the Castellblanch Art Fund and from the Directorate-General for Fine Arts in Madrid.

The central core on which most of her work is based revolves around essential questions that have troubled human beings since the earliest creation myths, religion or reflections on being and the relationship with alterity. Her work stems from mythological narratives, observation of the environment and the human condition.

Her oeuvre includes works dating from the early 1970s, encompassing sculpture, painting, and works on paper. In the field of sculpture, clay has been the material she has most frequently used, enabling her to emphasise an austere, rough, unadorned materiality. Regarding her two-dimensional work, her ink and tempera works on paper stand out, though she also presents a selection of canvases. In the early 1980s, Amorós exhibited regularly at the René Metrás Gallery, and it was through this gallery that Josep Suñol regularly acquired works by the artist for his collection. In 2015 she presented the exhibition “Despojos y derias” (Fundació Suñol, Barcelona), whose title already announces the introspective and taboo-free character to be found in the various rooms, and anticipates what the artist would reveal in this show. This exhibition offers a synthesis of the character of her work— its remnants and obsessions. Amorós addresses the great questions of humanity, yet at the same time we encounter a highly personal body of work that reveals some of her most intimate facets.

In recent years, Amorós has embraced radical, transgressive pieces with a strong expressionist character. She experiments with earth-and-fire techniques, maintaining an undeniable connection with contemporary Asturian ceramics. Her work leads us towards dialogue, meditation and the fortuitous intuition of her deepest feelings and passions regarding life, sexuality and death. Symbolic connotations seduced by simplicity and primitivism, where the earth speaks for itself.