Idoia Montón

Photo credit: Juande Jarillo

Idoia Montón’s art is an account of inputs and outputs for the autobiography and biography of the ordinary. It is a selective process through which it is possible to screen reality; a view of the world in disarray, littered with an abundance of dynamic forms in tension. Her paintings and drawings are constructed from a catalogue of images of everyday life with a tendency to dramatize certain scenes. Her collages reveal a taste for artifice and ornament, open systems, provisional hypotheses or the desire to produce meaning. The use of techniques linked to trade and recurring images that refer to a precarious yet fabulous world, a physical, tactile poetry that characterizes Montón’s paintings.

After stays in Bilbao and Donostia, Idoia Montón (Donostia/San Sebastián, 1969) currently lives and works in Barcelona. She studied Fine Arts at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Leioa (UPV/EHU). In 1989 and from 1990 to 1991, she attended sculpture workshops taught by Ángel Bados at Arteleku. She has won various awards, including First Prize at the New Artists of Gipuzkoa and a Juan de Otaola Fellowship and Pérez de Saracho, Kultur Basauri (1993). She has held individual exhibitions at Museo San Telmo, Donostia/San Sebastián (1995); Retratos de la gente de Egia, Garraxi Taberna de Donostia/San Sebastián (2004); La acción del arte, Bilkin Art Gallery, Bilbao (2003); Imágenes de la KM, Kasa de la Muntanya, Barcelona (2008); Partitura libre, Experimentem amb l’Art, Barcelona (2011), Un reflejo tangible, Halfhouse, Barcelona (2012), and La kasa del carpintero insurgente, Galería Alegría, Madrid (2014). Her collective exhibitions include Aláez, Figari, Montón, Salaberría, Galería Juana de Aizpuru, Madrid (1991), Hacer, la imagen, Galería Buades, Madrid (1992), Entre el objeto y el arte, Galería Vanguardia, Bilbao (1992), La caja de Pandora, Kultur Etxea, Basauri (1994). Charcutería, Galería Buades, Madrid (1996), La cicatriz interior, Sala Alcalá 31, Madrid (1996), and Icónica, Museo Patio Herreriano, Valladolid (2006).