Eugènia Balcells (1943)
Spain

"Eugènia Balcells was born in Barcelona in 1943 where she graduated with a major in Technical Architecture. Being the daughter and granddaughter of architects and inventors, she had daily contact with all kinds of ingenious artifacts, related to vision and mathematics, that encouraged her study of the tenuous balance between the intangible and the material, between the illusory and the exact.

She later moved to New York and completed her artistic training at the University of Iowa where she obtained her Master in Art. She subsequently alternated between  Barcelona and New York until, in 1979, she settled in the US for almost a decade. Now,  since 1988 she has been living in both cities once again.

Her artistic activity started in the mid-seventies in the context of conceptual art, becoming a pioneer in Spain within experimental film making and audiovisual art. The first installations, films and videos she produced can be defined as socio-critical, dealing with subjects related to contemporary consumer society and the media's influence on mass culture.

Towards the end of the seventies, she introduced the circle as a symbolic reference, seen now on the case of this CD Rom. The circle was the physical description of the movement of the camera, located in the center of a space, as in the film FUGA (Fugue, 1979), and in the video INDIAN CIRCLE (Winner of the Grand Prix de la 1Ëre Manifestation Internationale de Video in Montbeliard, 1982). The circle was also the formal conception of the structure of her works, for instance in the installation FROM THE CENTER (awarded a prize at the Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, New York, 1983).

In 1981 and 1982, after a series of contacts with different American musicians, especially Peter Van Riper, she explored the relationship between images and sounds already investigated in the film 133 (1978-1979) and she produced a collection of visual scores called SOUND WORKS.

Through the exploration of the limits of visual perception in two video installations: COLOR FIELDS, presented at the Primer Festival Nacional de VÌdeo at the CÌrculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid (1984), and TV WEAVE, presented at the Institute for Art and Urban Resources, P.S.I., New York (1985), she attained a new understanding of the electronic image.

The confrontation between human beings and their own existence, and the harmonies and dissonances of interpersonal relations are the central themes of works like DESCANSAN COMO EN LA CASA MATERNA I and II, EN TR¿NSIT and SINCRONÕAS, all presented in the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina SofÌa in Madrid, 1995 .
The subject of the installation TRASPASSAR LIMITS (Transcending Limits) (part of the exhibition VEURE LA LLUM at the Museu d'Art Contemporani of Barcelona in 1996) is the interaction of the complementary functions of the two sides of the human brain. With six translucent screens transfixed by two opposing projections, it provides a metaphor for the intrinsic co-existence of the rational and intuitive worlds.

Sometimes the subject of her audiovisual installations deals specifically with light, an interest at the core of all her creative and educational investigation. Her latest work a "Garden of Light" JARDÕ DE LLUM∑Collserola is a permanent installation in the subway station Ciutat Meridiana in Barcelona.

EugËnia Balcells early interest in daily objects (SUPERMERCART, CLEAR BOOKS) became the basis of her exploration of the human habitat. The objects associated with spaces, and their symbolic and energetic essence configures the exhibition EN EL COR DE LES COSES (In the Heart of Things). It is composed of five audiovisual installations, one for each of the essential spaces of a home - LIVING, KITCHEN, DINING, BEDROOM and BATHROOM. It was presented in Tinglado 2 in Tarragona in 1998.

Also working with daily objects, RODA DO TEMPO is a reflection about time: the cyclic time of nature, the linear time of history, subjective time, imaginary time, the non-existence of time, the coexistence of all times. This installation was commissioned by the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil in Rio de Janeiro in 2001.
 
EugËnia Balcells deals in several of her works with the image and the role of women in culture and the necessity to honor our historical heritage (GOING THROUGH LANGUAGES, PORTABLE ALBUM).  She portrays women in constant transformation, immersed in the waves of the sea, as a metaphor for life in UN ESPAI PROPI. This piece related to Virginia Woolf was commissioned by The Centre de Cultura Contempor‡nia de Barcelona (CCCB) and explores the limits between the external and internal worlds.

As a welcome to the new millennium the artist created BRINDIS (Invitation to Abundance) (1999-2000), presented in the gallery Alter Ego in Barcelona and in Casa de las AmÈricas in Madrid. This work invokes abundance, plenitude, happiness and celebration. It is this celebration of life that invites us to fill our glasses and raise them up with our best wishes.

In these last years, in parallel to her intensive creative activity, EugËnia Balcells has been teaching in different centers and universities. In her workshops she deals with light as a creative essence, integrating vision with all kinds of forms of knowledge like philosophy, literature, poetry, physics, etc. To preserve the legacy of her work it seems necessary to create a space where the accumulation of her knowledge, after years of explorations and rigorous research could be transmitted to others. With this in mind, the artist is now involved in the development of a new idea: the TRISTAR Creativity Center in New York." (Source, artist's website)

Works :

• Indian Circle (1981)
• TV Weave (1985)