For more than three decades, Angela de la Cruz has explored the possibilities and limitations of
painting. Her interest lies less in the image as an autonomous surface than in the question of
what painting can become once it abandons its traditional form. Her works occupy a space
between painting, object, and sculpture, making visible the material, spatial, and bodily conditions
of the medium. 

A key work in this development is Homeless (1996). No longer hanging on a wall, the work lies on
the floor; its stretcher broken, the canvas stripped of its customary order. In doing so, de la Cruz
removes the painting from its traditional position and turns its materiality and spatiality into the
central subject of the work. What initially appears to be an act of destruction becomes a
productive artistic strategy. Canvases are torn, cut, folded, re-stretched, or reassembled; stretchers
are broken apart and recombined; furniture is dismantled and transformed into new structures.
Destruction and construction are inseparable in this process. 

De la Cruz began studying painting at Goldsmiths College in London during the 1990s, a period
when the medium was often regarded as outdated or, as it was frequently described at the time,
the “ugly sister” of contemporary art. Her response was not a return to traditional painting but
rather its radical deconstruction. By separating the canvas from the stretcher and making the
stretcher itself part of the artwork, she shifted the boundaries between image and object. As the
artist explains: “In the moment I cut through the canvas, I get rid of the grandiosity of painting.” 

From the outset, this investigation has been closely linked to the body. Mass, volume, weight, and
vulnerability play a central role in her work. The stretcher becomes a kind of extension of the
body: pulling, breaking, folding, and compressing materials are physical actions that imbue the
works with an immediate sense of corporeality. As a result, the seemingly abstract forms acquire
an almost organic presence. The combination of canvas with “real” objects such as chairs, tables,
or cabinets, which de la Cruz began developing in the 1990s, further advances this shift from
image to object. 

The installation Barricade, presented at Kunstverein Dresden, is likewise rooted in this principle of
transformation. Different configurations of the series have previously been shown in Vienna and
Berlin. Dismantled furniture and fragmented canvases are assembled into constructions that stand
in space like shields or improvised barriers. The works obstruct passage, thereby directly
transforming the relationship between artwork and viewer. The image becomes a spatial situation;
viewing becomes a bodily experience. 

The barricade is more than a formal motif. It evokes exclusion, protection, and resistance, while
also reflecting a social condition in which divisions emerge and spaces become separated.
Historically, the barricade has symbolized revolt and the temporary appropriation of power by
those with few other means at their disposal. In de la Cruz’s work, this political dimension remains
open and ambiguous: a barrier protects, but it also excludes. As soon as a boundary is erected,
two sides come into being, raising the question of which side we occupy. 

This ambiguity becomes particularly evident in the works of the Barricade Hurdle series. The
fragmented canvases recall bodies that have been taken apart and reassembled. Narrow gaps
remain visible between adjoining pieces of canvas, almost resembling skin. The restrained palette
of broken whites, blacks, and earthy reds heightens the sense of vulnerability and exposure. At
the same time, the works possess a peculiar aggressiveness: they literally stand in the viewer’s
way. 

In Barricade (Chairs), Barricade (Sofa), and Barricade (Tables), de la Cruz also subjects furniture to
this process of transformation. The objects are dismantled, stripped of their original function, and
reassembled as fragile frameworks. Their internal structures are exposed, as though they had
been stripped of their skin. What once represented comfort, protection, and domesticity now
appears as an unstable skeleton. 

Barricade thus brings together the central concerns that have defined Angela de la Cruz’s practice
since the 1990s: the dissolution of the boundary between painting and sculpture, the physical
presence of materials, the proximity of destruction and construction, and the relationship
between the artwork and the body. Painting is not abandoned but continually reinvented.
Precisely by damaging, dismantling, and depriving it of its presumed stability, de la Cruz opens it
up to new possibilities. 

Angela de la Cruz was born in 1965 in A Coruña, Galicia, in northwestern Spain, and lives and
works in London. She studied Philosophy at the University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain
(1987), before moving to London, where she earned a BA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths College
(1994) and an MA in Sculpture and Critical Theory from the Slade School of Fine Art (1996). 

Selected Solo Exhibitions
IKON Gallery, Birmingham (2026); Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna (2023); Helga de Alvear Gallery,
Madrid, Spain (2022); Museo Cabañas, Guadalajara, Mexico (2021); CGAC, Santiago de
Compostela, Spain (2019); Galerie Thomas Schulte, Berlin, Germany (2019); Lisson Gallery, London,
UK (2018); Azkuna Zentroa, Bilbao, Spain (2018); Peer, London, UK (2016); Wetterling Gallery,
Stockholm, Sweden (2016); Fundación Luis Seoane, A Coruña, Spain (2015); CarrerasMugica,
Bilbao, Spain (2014); Wetterling Gallery, Stockholm, Sweden (2013); Camden Arts Centre, London,
UK (2010); Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Seville, Spain (2005); Museo de Arte
Contemporánea de Vigo and Annex Space MARCO, Spain (2004). 

Awards and Recognition
In 2010, de la Cruz was nominated for the Turner Prize and received the Paul Hamlyn Award in the
United Kingdom. In 2017, she was awarded Spain’s Premio Nacional de Artes Plásticas. In 2021,
she received the Sunny Dupree Family Award for a Woman Artistfor her contribution to the
Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in London. In 2022, she was nominated for the David and
Yuko Juda Foundation Grant. 

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Bettina M. Busse, Vienna