Untitled, 2019

Lidia Masllorens   Emerging artists

Lídia Masllorens (born in 1967 in Caldes de Malavella, Spain) is a Spanish contemporary artist recognized for her portrait paintings, her paper works, and her experimental approach to the representation of the human face. Graduating in Fine Arts from the University of Barcelona in 1991, with a specialization in painting, she also trained in photography, etching, and large-format sculpture. Her artistic practice is part of a constant research around the contemporary portrait, identity, and the expression of intimate emotions.

Lídia Masllorens' work focuses mainly on close-up human faces, conceived as archetypes of the 21st-century portrait. Her monumental works are distinguished by a strong visual presence, great emotional intensity, and remarkable gestural energy. The artist develops a unique technique based not on adding material, but on subtraction: she applies black acrylic paint on paper before transforming it through the use of water and bleach, thus creating effects of transparency, erasure, and revelation. This experimental method gives rise to a characteristic palette ranging from pink to white, from gray to black, where the randomness of chemical reactions fully participates in the creative process.

Influenced by the history of pictorial portraiture and a contemporary approach to the image, Lídia Masllorens explores the tension between appearance and disappearance, force and fragility, presence and absence. Her large formats on paper reveal expressive gazes and spontaneous gestures, where the material, water, and accidents of the process become essential elements of the composition. Her work testifies to a reflection on memory, perception, and the construction of identity through the face.

Since her beginnings, the artist has regularly exhibited in Spain and gradually developed an international career. In 2013, she received the Painting Prize from the Vila Casas Foundation, an award that contributes to strengthening her professional recognition. She subsequently exhibited her work in several international art galleries and fairs, notably in Europe and the United States. In 2016, she held her first solo exhibition in Paris at Galerie Arcturus as well as a solo presentation at the LA Art Show in Los Angeles.

Among her recent exhibitions are "Face to Face" at K+Y Gallery in 2023, a solo exhibition at Gallery Red in Palma de Mallorca in 2024 titled "Someone's story, no one's tale", as well as presentations at Alzueta Gallery in Barcelona and Leonhard's Gallery in Belgium. Her path also includes collective exhibitions and international collaborations, as well as the publication of the book "Rostres / Faces 2015-2020", dedicated to her work on portraiture.

Today, Lídia Masllorens is considered an important figure in the Spanish contemporary art scene. Through her expressive portraits, her mixed media on paper techniques, her innovative use of acrylic, water, and bleach, she renews the language of portraiture by proposing a painting that is at once sensitive, contemporary, and profoundly human. Her works, present in collections and shown in international galleries, question the relationship between the viewer and the represented face, making portraiture a space of emotional encounter and reflection on identity.