Angela de la Cruz

The work of Spanish-born, London-based artist Angela de la Cruz is immediately recognizable, as she is noted for her paintings that appear broken or distorted. These pieces rethink given notions of painting as a purely two-dimensional and representational medium. With their stretchers mangled or reconfigured, they resemble artworks closer to sculpture. “These works are about being on the verge of something, the liminal state between one form and another,” says de la Cruz. “There is a surface appearance and there is also what lies beneath. These pieces are quite aggressive but they are also in a calm state.” 

Wheelchair bound since 2005, de la Cruz now enlists assistants to aid her in the physical act of creating art. She was a 2010 nominee for the Turner Prize, and her work has been exhibited widely, included at institutions like the Camden Arts Centre in London, Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo in Sevilla, the Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art in Tel Aviv, and Moscow’s Museum of Modern Art, among others.