Angela de la Cruz

Biography

De la Cruz was born in La Coruña. She studied philosophy at the University of Santiago de Compostela, before moving to London in 1987, where she studied art at the Chelsea College of Art, Goldsmiths College and Slade School of Art (University College, London). She lives and works in London. In 2005 she suffered from a brain haemorrhage and felt in a coma. Her daughter Angelita was born in 2006. De la Cruz is now a wheelchair user and continues working with assistants through a delegated work, although this method of practice was used by her before the stroke.

Work

While studying at the Slade School of Art (University College London), she removed the stretcher of a painted canvas. De la Cruz was inspired by the resulting saggy painting, and she has become best known for paintings which are deliberately broken or distorted. In her words: "One day I took the cross bar out and the painting bent. From that moment on, I looked at the painting as an object." Her work, treating paintings as a three-dimensional object rather than a two-dimensional representation, follows a tradition that includes the spatialism of Lucio Fontana in the 1940s.

Her 1995 work "Ashamed" is a small straw-yellow painting, broken in half, which is exhibited wedged into a corner between two gallery walls. The similar 1996 work "Homeless", a much larger canvas of similar pale yellow hue, has its frame broken in two and folded, and is exhibited lurking in a corner, standing on the gallery floor. Waldemar Januszczak has described both as "urine coloured". "Self" (1997) comprises two brown paintings: one draped over a chair facing another hung conventionally on the wall. "Ready to Wear" (1997–2003) is series of red canvases, part-ripped from its frame, as if the painting were getting dressed. "Nothing" (1998–2005) is a series of black canvases, crumpled into a heap and abandoned on the gallery floor, resembling a discarded black plastic bag. Some works since 2000 have incorporated objects, such as chairs, tables or wardrobes, sometimes adorned with broken canvases. Her "Clutter" series (2003-5) bring together collections of waste art materials. Her "Deflated" paintings (2009-) hang forlornly from a hook, with no frame. "Flat" (2009) comprises a plastic and metal chair which has collapsed onto the floor.

She was commissioned to paint "Larger Than Life" in 1998 for the ballroom at the Royal Festival Hall.

She exhibited at Manifesta 5 at San Sebastián in 2004. Her first solo exhibition in the UK, entitled "After", was held at Camden Arts Centre in April and May 2010. She was nominated for the Turner Prize for this show in 2010.

In recent years de la Cruz has also used aluminium as a base material for her work. The metal is welded into shape, then crushed, beaten and distorted. This body of work has been exhibited in 'Burst' at the Lisson Gallery, Milan, in 2013 along other exhibitions.