Alberto Peral (Santurce, 1966)

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After graduating in Fine Arts from the UPV (University of the Basque Country), Peral took several courses at Arteleku, directed by Ángel Bados . Peral belongs to the generation of Basque artists who emerged in the early 1990s, inspired by the scene at Arteleku. Following this period, he spent a year at the Spanish Academy

in Rome, before moving to Barcelona, where he still lives today. 

 

Ever since his first important exhibition, in Espai 13 at Barcelona’s Fundació Joan Miró (1992), alongside Ana Laura Aláez, Peral’s work has shown a great striving for formal experimentation. This has led to him working with a wide range of media, from drawing, photography and sculpture to installation and video. He posits a poetic encounter between the simplest and most essential shapes and the symbolic power they harbour. 

 

With regards to form, Peral references the classical avant-garde in his language; he reveals the formal essence in nature and culture as manifestations of a universal order. Ovoid shapes are a germinal symbol, while circularity, rotation, light, colour and the surface of materials are key elements with which he constructs a poetics of form and spatiotemporal meaning. He takes this insight in multiple directions, further enhanced by his experiences of other places such as Mexico, India, Brazil, Venezuela, India, Japan and many other European countries. 

 

In 2009 he founded HALFHOUSE with Sinéad Spelman. This a non-profit space, still operating today, where solo exhibitions of national and international artists, workshops, conferences and artist residencies have been running for the last 10 years. 

 

Peral’s work has been seen in centres such as the Reina Sofía, the Irish Museum of Modern Art (Dublin) and the Hamburger Bahnhof (Berlin), and he has also been invited to speak about his work at the Tate Modern (London). His work is also featured in the most important collections of contemporary Spanish art, such as that of the Reina Sofía, Banco de España, Artium, La Caixa, Banc Sabadell, Centro de Arte Alcobendas, Fundación Botín, Unión Fenosa and Fundación Helga de Alvear, Macba among others.

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