Damià Díaz (Alicante, 7 July 1966) is a Spanish artist.

Damià Díaz in his studio. 2016

Biography

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After graduated with a BA in Fine Arts from Technical University of Valencia, Valencia, and l’Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Visuels de La Cambre, Brussels, Damià began his art career in 1986. He had his first international exhibition, Temps i Pensament,[1][2][3] at Saint Louis de l'Hôpital Salpêtrière, Paris. in 2002. Featuring painting and sculpture, the show would later travel to the University of Alicante Museum (MUA).

He continued experimenting with new materials and technologies, combining them with the legacy of Classical and Baroque art. In 2004 he exhibited Recinte D'Idees[4] at the Sapiencia chapel, University of Valencia.

In 2005, his show La Cabeza Parlante/Imagen del Caballero[5][6] was held at the cloister of La Nau, the former headquarters of the University of Valencia, to commemorate the 4th centennial of the first edition of Don Quixote. The exhibition travelled later to the Instituto Cervantes[7] in New York City.

In 2010 Damià took part in the A-Factorij project in Amsterdam where one of his painted iron and mixed media sculptures now remains on permanent exhibition in the public access to the complex. The rest of the works he presented in that project now belong to the Contempera Collection, Amsterdam. Both the A-Factorij project and the works included in it are featured in the book The Skin of Silence, The Work of Damià Díaz in the Contempera Collection, published in 2019 by the collector.[8]

In 2012 he presented The space between words[8][9] at the Erasmus House Museum in Brussels. In 2013, the exhibition went on display to La Parking Gallery,[10][11] in Alicante.

In 2016, following a period spent in Madrid, Díaz began working with virtual and mixed reality, incorporating these techniques into his art practice. That same year he created an exhibition/art action with virtual reality in the no longer existing venue Urg3l. The nature of the technique used, in which the borders between work, exhibition and documentation are fuzzy, means that it is still possible to access Storm of Silence[12] immersively despite the disappearance of the physical space for which it was conceived.

In 2017, the Martínez-LLoret Collection includes three of his works in the exhibition Alta Fidelidad[13] at the Miguel Hernández University of Elche.

In 2019, Díaz was chosen as a participating artist in the Mostra Espanha Biennial in Portugal, and was the first contemporary Spanish artist to exhibit at the Palace of Ajuda, Lisbon, with The Path of the Gaze[14][15][16][17][18][19][20] and the second to engage in a dialogue with the palace's historical and artistic legacy, following the exhibition by Joana Vasconcelos in 2013. In the words of Lucía Ybarra, from YGBART, co-curator of the show together with Rosina Gómez Baeza, “A group of works fills the halls of the nineteenth-century neoclassical palace, the former residence of the Portuguese royal family now converted into a historic museum, establishing a dialogue between two worlds: a gaze on the past from the perspective of an artist who constantly observes the relationship between the human being and his world. In Damià’s work the human figure is an observer of his surroundings. A selection of sculptures in painted resin, digital prints on ceramics and works in augmented reality enable the artist to intervene in singular spaces and transform rooms where the beholder can interact with the work. Thanks to the use of new technologies, the artist discovers and offers audiences new immersive possibilities. When coupled with a series of smaller format sculptures, drawings and sketches, the body of work as a whole evinces the creative processes and evolution of Damià’s practice. His work reflects an interest in the human being, in investigating and exploring the world in which he lives, a constant search to learn and to obtain new knowledge and new values that will help to defend himself against the present isolation of society today.”

References

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  1. ^ University of Alicante, ed. (3 June 2002). "Damià Díaz Inaugura en el Museo de la Universidad de Alicante la Muestra Temps I Pensament" (in Spanish). Alicante. Archived from the original on 23 October 2018. Retrieved 24 July 2020.
  2. ^ Ezequiel Moltó (4 June 2002). El Pais (ed.). "Un laberinto personal" (in Spanish). Valencia. Archived from the original on 10 April 2019. Retrieved 24 July 2020.
  3. ^ José Juis Martínez (2003). José Luis Martínez Meseguer (ed.). Damià Díaz. Temps i Pensament (in Spanish and Valencian). Alicante: Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes. ISBN 84-932304-2-1.
  4. ^ Rafael Gil (2004). Norberto Piqueras (ed.). Damià Díaz. Recinte d'Idees (in Spanish and Valencian). Valencia: Universitat de València. p. 206. ISBN 978-84-370-5905-1.
  5. ^ "Del Tirant al Quijote "Cabeza Parlante" de Damià Díaz" (in Spanish). Valencia: Vicerrectorado de Cultura, Universitat de Valencia. 2005. Archived from the original on 5 November 2008. Retrieved 24 July 2020.
  6. ^ Ferran Bono (30 March 2005). "'Del Tirant al Quijote' refleja el mundo de la caballería" (in Spanish). Valencia: El País. Archived from the original on 15 May 2019. Retrieved 24 July 2020.
  7. ^ "Damià Díaz: Talking Head". Nueva York City: nyork.cervantes.es. 21 April 2005. Archived from the original on 14 July 2013. Retrieved 24 July 2020.
  8. ^ a b Aramis López (2019). Margitte Verwoerdt (ed.). The Skin of Silence. The work of Damià Díaz in the Contempera Collection. Ámsterdam: Contempera, Schiphol-Rijk. ISBN 9789090317236. Archived from the original on 2020-07-02. Retrieved 2020-07-24.
  9. ^ Oscar García (20 September 2012). "El proyecto "El espacio entre las palabras" de Damià Díaz llega a Bruselas" (in Spanish). Madrid: PAC Plataforma de Arte Contemporáneo. ISSN 2445-3102. Archived from the original on 2019-04-10. Retrieved 21 October 2018.
  10. ^ Daniel Moltó (15 October 2012). "Arte en el 'parking'" (in Spanish). Madrid: Unidad Editorial. Retrieved 21 October 2018.
  11. ^ José Luís Martínez (4 July 2013). "Entrevista a Damià Díaz" (in Spanish). Madrid: PAC Plataforma de Arte Contemporáneo. ISSN 2445-3102. Retrieved 21 October 2018.
  12. ^ "Storm of Silence". Vimeo. 21 October 2020. Retrieved 30 October 2020.
  13. ^ Tatiana Sentamans Gómez; Ricardo Forriols (2017). Universitas Miguel Hernández (ed.). Quaderns d'Art nº 8 // 2017 (PDF) (in Spanish and Valencian). Elche: Universitat Miguel Hernández d’Elx. ISBN 978-84-697-7416-8. Retrieved 2020-11-05.
  14. ^ Blanca Vázquez (23 June 2019). "El Camino de la Mirada por Damià Díaz" (in Spanish). Madrid: Metalocus. Retrieved 2 July 2020.
  15. ^ Rubén Manrique (1 October 2019). "Damià Díaz – El Camino de la mirada" (in Spanish). Madrid: NE02.
  16. ^ "Minuto 23,13 LA 2 Noticias TVE" (in Spanish). Madrid: RTVE. 21 October 2019.
  17. ^ Íñigo Picabea (22 October 2019). "Empezamos El Dia Con Arte en RNE" (in Spanish). Madrid: RTVE.
  18. ^ Paula Fernández (18 October 2019). "El Camino de la Mirada" (in Spanish). Lisbon: EFE.
  19. ^ Paula Fernández (18 October 2019). "Damià Díaz Aborda en Lisboa el Diálogo Entre El Pasado y Lo Contemporáneo" (in Spanish). Barcelona: La Vanguardia.
  20. ^ Thais Peñalver (4 November 2019). "Arquitectura Dentro de Una Arquitectura" (in Spanish). Valencia: Valencia Plaza.
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