Juan Silió Gallery presents the first exhibition at the gallery by Irma Álvarez-Laviada. In her first solo show in Madrid, the artist focuses on the creative process, pausing to consider how ideas transition through an array of circular forms.

In her work, Álvarez-Laviada undertakes a study of painting by dissecting and analyzing essential yet often overlooked or tangential elements such as materials, primary colors, and basic geometric shapes. On this occasion, she works with the aim of giving thought a form that defines creative processes. The circle (or circumference), considered the most perfect shape, represents—with all its conceptual variations—the complexity involved in something seemingly as simple as transitioning from one idea to another, just as one moves from a concave curve to a convex one.

The exhibition features the collaboration of the ConTRoL Collective (Mario Manso and Daniela Jándula), students of Irma Álvarez-Laviada at UCM, whose project Tal por tal reflects on the circle as a portal to other realities, which in this case connects different generations.

The career of artist Irma Álvarez-Laviada (Gijón, 1978) can be situated within the field of expanded painting, in an attempt to radically question all that refers to the structural elements of painting in its self-referential nature as a medium. In this way, the painting becomes an autonomous entity, whose flat surface refers only to itself, thereby surpassing any notion of representation or the illusion of depth.

She has received numerous grants, including the Visual Arts Grant from the Fundación Botín, and artist residencies at Cité des Arts in Paris and the Academy of Spain in Rome. Her work has been showcased at international art fairs such as Maco, Liste, Photo Miami, Circa, Arco, and Estampa, among others. She has also exhibited in institutions including Fundación Cerezales Antonino y Cinia (León) and Fundación RAC (Pontevedra). Her work is part of major collections such as the European Parliament, AECID, Pilar Citoler Collection, Mariano Yera Collection, Spanish Ministry of Culture, Fundación Antonio Gala, the Galila Barzilai Collection (Brussels), and the Berezdivin Collection (Puerto Rico). Most recently, she held a solo exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts of Asturias.