MARU QUIÑONERO

For her first solo exhibition in Paris, the artist presents a new series of works that reflects the recent evolution of her practice. While continuing her long-standing exploration of color, this body of work introduces a new dialogue with figuration, a territory that Maru Quiñonero has only recently begun to explore. She describes this new direction in her own words:

**“**There is a delicate boundary between the figurative and the abstract. At that threshold, what color embraces, the line gives form to.

For many years, my artistic practice has explored the territory of pure abstraction, using color and a sensitive geometry as the means to shape a deeply personal emotional landscape.

It is within this creative fissure that my visual language is now undergoing a quiet yet profound transformation. Although my work remains firmly rooted in visual synthesis, I feel that certain silhouettes have begun to emerge in my paintings, asserting their own presence and identity. These are forms that evoke the stillness of a house, the groundedness of a mountain or, in this new body of work, the serene image of a human figure gradually fading away.

These figures are not intended as faithful representations, but rather as echoes of something familiar that lingers in memory. They function as emotional anchors, offering a place where colour and line finally converge. Yet while the figure remains anecdotal—almost a pretext—it is colour that takes centre stage. It continues to play a fundamental role in my work; it is both the point of departure and the culmination of my entire creative process. The backgrounds of my paintings now hold layer upon layer of color, bearing witness to my reality as a painter. Stain and form enter into dialogue through stillness, contemplation and a quiet sense of inner calm.

This evolution towards a suggested materiality now extends beyond the canvas. To the dialogue between painting and writing that I have explored throughout my recent projects, I now add thread—reclaiming a gesture shared by the women in my family and incorporating it into my practice through crocheted pieces, which have become an essential part of my time in the studio. Working with thread allows me to give my poems an unprecedented physical presence, intertwining thought and fibre into a tangible structure that can be read, touched and felt.

At this point of convergence, another need emerges: an essential need for silence. In a world that drives us towards constant acceleration and deafening noise, painting, writing and crocheting have become acts of resistance—a conscious search for slowness, reflection and presence. In the solitude of my studio, I create the very place where introspection ceases to be a wound and becomes a place of refuge.

Within this space, painting, language and thread inevitably coexist, giving shape to emptiness and building a structure of their own—solid, inhabitable and enduring. Ultimately, they give rise to a new pictorial language, one grounded in honesty.**”**Maru Quiñonero