Deep Dive

Pradiauto is pleased to present "Deep Dive", the first exhibition in the space dedicated to two London-based artists. Karolina Dworska (1997, Rzeszów, Poland) is a graduate from Goldsmiths University and this year has been awarded the New Contemporaries prize —the UK's leading support network for emerging art practices— and her most recent work will be shown in conversation with the painting of Kin-Ting Li, (1991, Hong Kong, China) a 2019 graduate of the Slade School of Fine Arts, London.

The exhibition "Deep Dive" delves into the work of these two artists and reclaims the world of dreams and the amorphous as a place of pure potency. The title of this proposal refers or alludes to that inner, intimate and personal dive that takes place during sleep. Both artists allow themselves to be absorbed in a dreamlike tunnel of illogical forms and dismembered bodies, elements that they then incorporate as part of their artistic imaginary. They both enter, from very different processes, into places full of viscosity, fragile fantasy and agitated dreams, carrying out a dual exercise of respect for fantasy and memory.

In dialogue with this project, Pradiauto presents a selection of drawings by Javier Chozas, who lives and works in Madrid. The artist, who also graduated from Goldsmiths in 2018, shows on this occasion a selection of works on paper and resin reliefs. Pradiauto seeks to recognise his work in the field of drawing and the importance of the line in a work often identified with sculpture.

Curated together with Vera Martín Zelich
Karolina Dworska
Karolina Dworska (B. 1997, Rzeszów, Poland) is a Polish artist living and working in London, UK. She graduated from BA Fine Art at Goldsmiths in 2020, followed by a year-long Fine Art Junior Fellowship at the University. In 2021 she was one of the artists selected for the Bloomberg New Contemporaries. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including in London, Madrid and Seoul, and featured in numerous international publications, including Sztuka i Dokumentacja and El País, as well as Time Out Magazine.

Karolina Dworska’s multidisciplinary practice explores dreams, mythologies and liminal fantasy spaces, situated between the unconscious and reality. Littered with surreal motifs and mysterious inhabitants, her dreamscapes examine the strangeness, abject horror as well as the euphoria of corporeal existence. Desire and longing are also at the core of her work.

She explores the connection between recurring dreams and mythological allegory, and how the seemingly private, internal dream space can be externalised to connect to contemporary narratives and anxieties. Deeply intertextual, her work interweaves folklore, science fiction and the everyday, reconfigured through the meditative lens of dreaming. Dworska utilises textile mediums, in particular rug-tufting, a technique in which she hand constructs pictorial rugs, as well as using machine knitting and elements of sculpture to devise her surreal vision.
Kin-Ting Li
(Hong Kong, 1991) attempts, through her painting practice, to create new forms and address the subjectivity of interpretation. Through interlocking perspectives and shifting forms, the paintings are situated within a space filled with various forms of fictional construction. The observation of everyday life gives rise to a visual composite of textures, organic structures and objects simplified into almost symbolic forms.
Javier Chozas
(Madrid, 1972) completed an MFA in Fine Art at Goldsmiths University in August 2018. He has also completed an MFA at the School of Fine Arts in Madrid and holds a degree in Architecture from the School of Architecture of Madrid. His work has been exhibited at the Tenderpixel gallery in London, La Casa Encendida, Matadero and Tabacalera (Madrid), Würth Museum (La Rioja), P60 (Amstelveen), Kunsthaus Bethanien (Berlin), La Panacée (Montpellier) and Bólit (Girone), among others. He has published his first essay, Digital Time. Narcissos narcotizados, in 2014. He writes regularly for BritEs Magazine.
03.07.21 – 04.09.21

The Tongue Says Loneliness

Inquire
This exhibition brings together six artists whose work explores language and delves into its codes, failures and capacity to act as a trap. From different visual languages, the works propose gestures, processes, materials and actions that slip and separate themselves from the rigid ideal of language, imagining new codes of contact. The works in this exhibition disarticulate languages and reinvent them through randomness, repetition, deviation and superposition.

The title recalls a poem by the writer Jane Hirshfield "The tongue says loneliness, anger, grief, but does not feel them (...)". In her texts, the author addresses themes such as the functioning of the metaphorical mind, translation, the search for resistance through poetry, surprise, uncertainty and paradox.

Curated together with Vera Martín Zelich
Michael Dean
(Newcastle, 1977) lives and works in London. He graduated from Goldsmiths, University of London in 2001 with a BA Fine Art (Studio Practice and Contemporary Critical Theory). In 2016, Dean was a Turner Prize nominee and in 2018, he was nominated for the Hepworth Prize for Sculpture. Dean's solo exhibitions include Government at Henry Moore Institute (2010), Qualities of Violence at De Appel arts centre, Amsterdam (2015), Sic Glyphs at South London Gallery (2016), Lost True Leaves at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, Texas, U.S.A. (2016), Tender Tender at Westphalian State Museum of Art and Cultural History, Munster and Stamen Papers at Fondazione Giuliani, Rome (2016).
Anna Dot
(Vic, 1991) lives and works between Barcelona and Torelló. She is dedicated to artistic practice, through which she carries out various explorations of language. She has exhibited in different spaces in Barcelona and Tarragona, as well as in Mexico and Germany. She complements her artistic production with theoretical research at the Department of Translation, Interpreting and Applied Languages of the University of Vic. She also writes art criticism for A*Desk and Encuentros and teaches at the School of Visual Arts in Torelló and at La Farinera in Vic. She is co-founder of the collectives Murió de Frío and Supterranis (organisers of the Festival Plaga) and member of the visual arts commission of the Festival Festus, Torelló.
Elisa Pardo Puch
Elisa Pardo Puch (1988, Madrid). After completing her Bachelor's Degree in Fine Arts at the UCM at the CES Felipe II in Aranjuez in 2014, she obtained a Master's Degree in Contemporary Art History and Visual Culture from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and the Universidad Complutense de Madrid in 2017. Previously, in 2010, she completed her Higher Studies in Design at the Escuela de Arte no10 in Madrid, and in 2009, she was the beneficiary of an Erasmus scholarship at the École Duperré in Paris.

She has participated in numerous exhibitions such as ‘Metal Heart: lo que pesa’ at Departamento, Bilbao; ‘Bajo el cielo de la noche’ at Boiler Room, Luis Adelantado Gallery, Valencia; and ‘A Strange Fairytale’ at Pradiauto Gallery, ArteSantander, Santander; or ‘La Espera’, also with Pradiauto, in Madrid. In addition, her work has been part of various group exhibitions, such as the group presentation of the Miquel Casablancas Prize 2023 in Barcelona; ‘Malas Hierbas’ at CasaBanchel, Madrid, in 2024; ‘Una exposición oral’ at Sant Andreu Contemporani, Barcelona; and ‘Garden Shed’ at Villa Bergerie, in Huesca, in 2023, among others.

Elisa Pardo Puch has also participated in various artistic residencies, such as the current one at GlogauAIR, Berlin, from January to June 2024, where she created the work for the exhibition Quienes vagan curiosos por mil maravillas; the Residency at Villa Bergerie, Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Huesca, 2023; Artist in Residence Munich, 2022; or the Matadero Artist Residency Programme. CRA Matadero, Madrid, 2020. Pardo Puch has received numerous awards such as the Miquel Casablancas Prize (finalist), Barcelona, 2023; Acquisition Prize at Nada Sobra, Nebrija University, Madrid, 2017; and Special Mention at Getxoarte, Bilbao, 2016.
Beatriz Olabarrieta
(Bilbao, 1979) lives and works between London and Berlin. She holds a degree in Philosophy from the University of Deusto, another in Sculpture from the Wimbledon School of Art (London) and a master's degree in Sculpture from the Royal College of Art (London). Her solo exhibitions include: Stay Twice, Bielefelder Kunstverein, Bielefeld, Germany (2019); Faces, Espai 13, Joan Miró Foundation, Barcelona, Spain (2019); Ask the Dust, Museum of Contemporary Art of Santa Barbara, California, USA (2018-19); New Clear Family, Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Germany (2018); The only way out is in, The Sunday Painter, London, UK (2017); Book! Don't tell me what to do, Parallel Oaxaca, Mexico City, Mexico (2017); Dumb Bells, Saturdays Live, Serpentine Galleries, London, UK (2016); Cosmic Clap, MOT International, London; UK (2015); Motor Motor, Praxis, Artium, Centro-Museo Vasco de Arte Contemporáneo, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain (2012). Recently, she was part of the curatorial project Absolute Beginners at CentroCentro, Madrid, Spain (2020).