Ester Partegàs
Born in La Garriga, Barcelona (1972), currently based in New York, Marfa TX, and Barcelona.
Ester Partegàs’ work seeks, discovers and produces questions about worth, loss and indifference in the generic objects and spaces that we consume. With a varied formal vocabulary that incorporates sculpture, the photographic image, drawing and painting, Partegàs questions our ways of seeing and establishing relationships with our immediate material world.
Since her first exhibitions in the late nineties, Partegàs has developed a theme that explores the urban landscape of the consumer society. A multidisciplinary artist, she easily moves between drawing, painting, sculpture and installation, although in the formal development of her work, volumetric and spatial aspects persist which lead to a definition of the artist as a sculptor. In many of her pieces, Partegàs expresses her interest in the power of the word and its confrontation with the realm of the image. In this way the artist rearranges advertising messages and proposes an unnerving reading of public billboards or covers the heads of passers-by with branded bags, nullifying their identity. At other times she places the spectator in the waiting room of an airport and thus represents a ‘no place’ to nowhere.
Selected works
Codependence
2019
Fast Maché, cardboard, cotton fabric, wood glue, acrylic and enamel paint, sealer, steel, plywood
155 × 125 × 125 cm (61 1⁄32 × 49 7⁄32 × 49 7⁄32 inches)
Room
2020
Cardboard, cotton fabric, wood glue, Fast-Maché, acrylic paint, pencil, rope, wood stick, sealer, plywood
153 × 183 × 132 cm (60 1⁄4 × 72 1⁄16 × 51 31⁄32 inches)
Studies on Mysticism (Blue Icicle)
2017
Acrylic on food packaging
29.5 × 23.5 cm (11 5⁄8 × 9 1⁄4 inches)
Polylumpious Tetraflacidontics (red and white)
2011
Enamel on cardboard
103.5 × 156 × 7 cm (40 3⁄4 × 61 13⁄32 × 2 3⁄4 inches)
Polylumpius Tetraflacidontics (green, yelow)
2011
Enamel on cardboard
170 × 115 cm (66 15⁄16 × 45 9⁄32 inches)
Polylumpious Tetraflacidontics (red, yellow, orange)
2005
Enamel on mylar
203 × 91.5 × 46 cm (79 29⁄32 × 36 1⁄32 × 18 1⁄8 inches)
Daily Collapse (Reg.$399.99SML)
2009
Pencil, acrylic and spray paint on paper, collage, inkjet print
23 × 30.5 cm (9 1⁄16 × 12 inches)
Ooze (1P1Y2W3WD)
2009
Enamel, acrylic, spray paint, plexiglaSs and wood
160 × 148 × 9 cm (63 × 58 9⁄32 × 3 17⁄32 inches)
Daily collapse (Age hunter)
2008
65 × 81 × 5 cm (25 19⁄32 × 31 7⁄8 × 1 31⁄32 inches)
Daily Collapse (Rush fight)
2007
88 × 67 × 5 cm (34 21⁄32 × 26 3⁄8 × 1 31⁄32 inches)
Barricades (Have I Ever Done Anything Useful?)
2007
Enamel and acrylic on mylar and vinyl, paper
245 × 294 cm (96 15⁄32 × 115 3⁄4 inches)
Les Coses mes importants no son coses
2006
Pink neon
20 × 300 cm (7 7⁄8 × 118 1⁄8 inches)
Ask your doctor (We the people series)
2006
Inkjet ultrachrome archival print
140 × 112 cm (55 1⁄8 × 44 3⁄32 inches)
Les Coses més Importants no son Coses
2004
Steel, acrylic, enamel
55 × 55 cm (21 21⁄32 × 21 21⁄32 inches)
Life is Tremendous
2005
Wood, enamel, plaster, resin, acrylic
203 × 91.5 × 46 cm (79 29⁄32 × 36 1⁄32 × 18 1⁄8 inches)
Eclipse
2007
Metal, resin, wood, plastic, acrylic and enamel paint
172 × 182 × 114 cm (67 23⁄32 × 71 21⁄32 × 44 7⁄8 inches)
Installation
No Retention
2020
PURE JOY
Marfa
Texas
The Source
2015
Public Sculpture for Percent For Art
New York
The Passerby
2015
Foxy Production
New York
The Restless Gardens. Curating the Collection
2014
Centre d’Art La Panera
Lleida
You Are Here
2014
Anderson Gallery
New York
In_ We Trust: Art and Money
2014
Columbus Museum of Art
Columbus
2011 Lúmens
2011
Museu de Valls
Valls
Invasores
2007
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía
Madrid
Samesation
2002
Rice University Art Gallery
Houston
Exhibitions
The Passerby
MadridMar 25 - May 20, 2017
“For me, these typically over-looked materials serve as clues to a shared social and affective reality”
Discover
WATCHDOG-LAPDOG-PLAYDOG
BarcelonaApr 02 - May 07, 2016
“The press is a watchdog. Not a lapdog. A watchdog. Now, a watchdog can’t be right all the time. He doesn’t bark only when he sees or smells something that’s dangerous. A good watchdog barks at things that are suspicious.” -Dan Rather (American journalist and a former anchor for CBS Evening News)
Discover
Rebava
BarcelonaApr 02 - May 16, 2009
Partegàs recreates an urban landscape inside the gallery space with a multidisciplinary work: video-installation, sculpture and drawing.
Discover
Grasses Saturades
BarcelonaJan 11 - Mar 10, 2007
Ester Partegàs (La Garriga, 1972) presents her second solo show at NoguerasBlanchard, formed by a large wall-mural and a series of digitally manipulated prints that articulate tensions around consumption and excess in a global society.
Discover
Barricades
BarcelonaSep 25 - Nov 20, 2004
Nogueras Blanchard presents the first solo exhibition in a gallery of Esther Partegàs. Barricades has a number of border works between painting, drawing and sculpture to explore urban public spaces and consumer culture, central themes in the artistic practice of Partegàs.
Discover