Carmen Rey
I was born in Mataró, Barcelona. For years, my professional career as a chemist and computer scientist was far removed from art, until 2014 when I began my training in painting and figurative drawing. Since then, I have continuously deepened my study of drawing from life, the human figure, and contemporary realism, training with national and international artists such as Felipe Alonso, Joshua LaRock, Irene Cuadrado, Alex Kanevsky, Catherine Kehoe, Jennifer Pochinski, Paco Lafarga, and Antonio López, among others.
I have worked on commissioned pieces and participated in national and international exhibitions and competitions. My work is part of private collections in various countries.
In 2023, I held my second solo exhibition, Visions of the Portrait, which focused on the different technical and expressive approaches I use in portraiture, from a more precise realism to more intuitive and free approaches. My work is situated at a point of equilibrium between rigorous technique and a personal search for the emotional and symbolic, where the human figure acts as the central axis.
The human figure is the vehicle through which I explore states of mind linked to introspection, vulnerability, and melancholy. In my latest collections, figures appear in solitude, in dialogue with themselves. I do not start from a preconceived theme: I discover the theme by observing what I paint again and again. In my case, that constant has been intimacy.
The realistic technique functions as an anchor, but not as a limit. I often let color, texture, or composition introduce abstract or symbolic elements that open new readings and move the work away from the purely literal.
I also work on series of portraits created more instinctively, where emotion weighs more than physical resemblance. They do not represent a specific person, but seek to have the viewer recognize themselves in an emotion, a gesture, or an inner trait. My painting is born from there: from observation, from silence, and from what happens when someone stops to look inward.
