Bio
Nerea Azanza is an emerging Spanish visual artist based in Paris. Due to her scientific background and experience in cultural heritage restoration, she is passionate about experimenting with diverse materials, investigating spatial patterns, and developing visual mutations and cloning.
She holds a Ph.D. in Fine Arts and an MFA in conservation-restoration of cultural heritage from the Fine Arts Faculty of the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM, Spain), where she studied with artist Antonio López García and worked as an art teacher. She has been a preventive conservator-restorer specializing in wax anatomical models at the Javier Puerta Museum (Faculty of Medicine of the UCM) and The Museum of Human Evolution (Burgos, Spain) in collaboration with Professor J. L. Arsuaga.
Back to making art in 2018, she stands as a finalist in the Clavecin en France art contest 2022, with Fabienne Verdier as jury president and a semi-finalist in the COCA PROJECT 2020. She has been part of group exhibitions in Europe and the USA. Her first solo show took place in Paris in 2021 with Galerie Estrella. She exhibited for the first time in a museum, the UNTERLINDEN (Colmar, France), in 2022 due to the Clavecin en France contest. In 2024, some of her works were selected for the Lunar Codex with 33 Contemporary Gallery. They will be launched to the moon in the Codex Polaris mission, part of NASA's Artemis Program, in September 2025.
Q&A
What is the purpose or goal of your work?
My work aims to establish human connections. I strive not only to be part of others' spaces but also to eventually meet people who resonate with my vision and become friends. I stopped painting due to a misdiagnosis that lasted two decades, and I felt disconnected. Although I had worked in the arts my whole life, I couldn't paint, sculpt, or draw because the medication I never needed shut down my creativity. In December 2018, after a long battle of self-recovery, I took a Moleskine and began making colorful line drawings. I had never painted lines flowing from portraits before. I realized that I aimed to connect with people. We all seek connection, whether it's with other human beings, animals, nature, spiritual elements, cultures, places, or traditions. We haven't been born to be alone. I felt lonely, and once my creativity was flourishing again, all I could do was paint to express myself in ways I never did. My work seeks to connect with you, the viewer, and I hope that you feel part of the connection I am exploring. My goal is to nourish our permanent human desire for connection.
Which art trends inspire your current work?
Four main elements inspire my work. Japanese aesthetics. I even work with two Japanese models.
Additionally, the lines of parametrical architectural design deeply influence the precision and movement of my work. My body movement marks and flows as I paint, creating precise freehand lines. In this regard, I am particularly drawn to Zaha Hadid's work.
Furthermore, the disrupted realism inspires the transformed features in my portraits. I paint the same faces repeatedly, from self-portraits to my Asian models, each time transforming them differently to convey new expressions and feelings based on the theme I am exploring in the painting.
Lastly, fabric art plays a significant role in my work. I sew lines on the portraits that I expand afterward, and my larger paintings hang as tapestries made of handcrafted, eco-friendly supports that I treat. Sewing is a mark-making process that reminds me of all the influential women in my life, from my grandmothers to my mom and aunts.
How has your education helped you in your career?
My education has freed me to achieve my aesthetics, mixed media techniques, singular eco-friendly supports and praxis, in a few years. Everything finally falls into place and makes sense. While I didn't initially plan to become an artist, it was inevitable. I felt like a puzzle, but now I feel complete.
I started studying chemistry in college because my parents are scientists and they didn't see me as an artist. I didn't come from an artistic background, except for my paternal grandmother, who was a jewelry designer. Despite the scientific environment at home, I always enjoyed drawing with her. I don't regret my years studying chemistry as it has greatly helped me in working with mixed media techniques and understanding the technical aspects of creating a stable artwork where the elements interact harmoniously.
Although I didn't complete my chemistry degree, I earned money as a professional art copyist, and I moved to Madrid and joined the Fine Arts Faculty of Complutense University. I hold a Ph.D. in Fine Arts and a Master's in Conservation-Restoration of Cultural Heritage. Before transitioning to a professional artist in 2019, I worked as a preventive conservator-restorer in university museums and foundations. Restoring art is a meticulous process, and my work reflects that. I am dedicated to creating art that endures the test of time. I understand the factors that can lead to the deterioration of my paintings and work in the studio to ensure their stability against temperature and humidity changes, UV exposure, and more. I refer to my studio as "the lab" because I conduct extensive research on materials and experiment with various techniques. In restoration studios, we prioritize eco-friendly practices and respect for nature, and I apply these principles in my Parisian studio.
What are your most valued skills as an artist?
I am a curious person and I love learning. I believe both are skills that I will continue to develop throughout my life. Growing up in different countries and being surrounded by people from diverse backgrounds due to my parents' work has given me an open-minded perspective.
I have excellent visual memory, a keen sense of color, and strong spatial skills. When I was a child, a school team informed my parents that I had a natural talent for understanding space. "She should be a pilot or an artist," they said, which made my parents laugh. People have always admired my steady hand when painting precise freehand lines without the use of sketching or masking techniques. Having a steady hand is a crucial skill in art restoration, and what people may not realize is that my eyes and brain constantly measure and study the space as I paint. This intuitive process allows me to precisely paint circles, lines, and geometric shapes and make the composition work within the space.
My memory operates in a visual manner; I struggle with memorizing data but can repeatedly reproduce the same color and create the perfect mixture. I remember lines, shapes, patterns, and even features. When I was 16, I worked as a professional copyist while still in school. The artist who trained me and invited me to join his team always considered it a plus. I can combine colors harmoniously without relying on color theory or creating samples.
Describe a piece of art you are most proud of. Why?
Origin is a series that establishes a dialogue between human identity concerning our current society, today's historical situations, and the digital age. These large format pieces are installations hung from the ceiling or the wall. The painting represents the current cultural disruptions with the aim of connection. Besides our differences and fights, the human race is a whole. The portrait of the artistic model, Anna Uchiyama, is printed on Japanese rice paper due to her Asian origin. Organic lines of sewn threads cross her features and extend with painted lines over the handcrafted support. This eco-friendly textile, treated with a golden leaf, acts as a cosmogony. Then, her roots find the place that reunites all human beings: the Universe.
I am incredibly proud of this piece because it is the seed of The Origin Series, which is my favorite. It has a beautiful story of connections. When I arrived in Paris, I had the pleasure of meeting Anna Uchiyama and being part of a book that an international team put together around her. She is a fantastic artistic model who works with remarkable artists worldwide. As an artist with a short career, I was surprised that they liked my work in 2020 and invited me to be part of the project. It was a "WOW" moment for me. Origin became the central point of an ongoing series. As Anna says, it is a work that connects me back to Japan through its lines and cosmic look. Thanks to this work, I developed a friendship with the model, and we continue working together and drinking green tea when possible.