Esther Merinero

Esther Merinero’s work delves into a series of notions that belong to a very specific moment of contemporary life: nostalgia, loneliness and the will to connect, to grow out of oneself, but also survival and potential. The contrast of these emotions with a world mediated by over exposure, uncertainty and fear make the base for a constant combination of hard and soft materials - moments of desire and fluidity often locked up under structures of protection or security.

Her work often parts from a paradoxical assemblage of subjects and intensities; encounters between soft bodies and constraining structures. Objects that belong to the urban context and daily life acquire human behaviours and autonomous gestures, while coexisting in the same universe with dreams, magical spells and potentiality. A car accident becomes the starting point where destroyed mirrors and bollards recover their own agency. Holes, flaws and cracks give space for life to leak in. A stain of oil on the road is possibly a door to another world.

In her work, it is precisely those containing-protective elements like shields, bollards or helmets that enhance the mutating and fragile nature of those organisms, while the more fluid aspects speculate on possibilities for a transformed world, different affects and agencies taking control; all standing as imagined portraits of our own limitations and potential.

by Sofia Corrales Åkerman

Director at PRADIAUTO, Madrid