AiR Tilburg

Eloisa Ibarra

SEA Foundation welcomes Artist in Residence Eloisa Ibarra (b.1968), who lives and works in Montevideo, Uruguay. Her oeuvre consists of paintings, engravings, sculptures and installations. More than ten years ago she resigned from a successful career as a director and creative designer in advertising to solely concentrate on being a professional artist. This switch is an eminent success. She now is a national and international well respected artist with fourteen solo shows and over fifty group shows.

Netherlands residency

Eloisa Ibarra has reached at a point in her career where she needs to make decisions that affect her artistic production significantly in the future. She says “After recently being awarded the Premio Nacional de Artes Octavio Podesta, which was juried -amongst others- by Cuautemoc Medina, and my large solo show in Museo Blanes in Montevideo, the purpose of the residency is not only to submerge myself into a different culture and exchange ideas with local artists. Undoubtedly that experience alone will already affect my work in a way that may last for years. But my main goal for the residency at SEA Foundation is to work on a new large scale exhibition project. The idea is to “charge batteries”. I which to see art conceived specifically for a biennial an other large scale exhibitions in Europe. After visiting Venice I will visit museums and galleries in the Netherlands. Then, in the residency at SEA Foundation, I will be able to bring all the gathered energy to an adequate environment and start working on my own project. When I say “adequate environment” I mean -of course- the residency, I mean getting in touch with art professionals from SEA Foundation’s international network, whom are involved in contemporary art from different positions and perspectives, experts that have access to and have experience with art produced for “cardinal exhibitions”, and whom are also in touch with the current European art market”.

Focus on research

The residency at SEA Foundation in the Netherlands, focusses on research, reflection and questioning Eloisa Ibarra’s professional practice, the way she works as well as finding the career opportunities and possibilities for the future. The aim is to devise a concept leading to a new line of work for upcoming individual exhibitions as well as the conception of a project to be presented in larger scale exhibitions, in terms of space and surrounding conditions.

Eloisa Ibarra: “I need to do art because it is the way I can better express myself. I think a connection can only be accomplished, at least in my case, by presenting a work that is rigorously composed, where the colours and the atmosphere are right, where there is unity, balance, subtleties”.

Website Eloisa Ibarra
TV trailer for El Monitor Plastico with Eloisa Ibarra 2016, (in Spanish only)