El Capricho 48 Calle de Alcala
Painting and drawing I have always circled around what makes us call someone or something feminine
My earlier workgroups would try and look at femininity as a counterpart of masculinity
My pictures still go on about the same thing but due to age, I suppose, the circle has become detached from this duality
This musing and circling made me remember my grandmother Matilde Padros
Her family had a shop for ladies fashion in 19. century Madrid situated at
48 Calle de Alcala – pretty prominent spot
Timoteo Padros, my great-grandfather, let Matilde go to university and she became the first woman in Spain to acquire a doctor tile
Although Timoteo let her go to university, after finishing she was expected to come and work in the shop
My exhibition carries the name of that shop “El Capricho”
I doubt that my gatherings honour that elegant shop but there is nobody left to judge
So I felt free to accumulate everything that appeared to me in some way feminine: dresses with their folds and rips, fallen into laky liquids, furry animals, birds with their peaks and feathers, flowers with their known connotation
In a way with El Capricho I am trying to build a collection of femininity displaying it in the space of this old shop of my family