José Manuel Ciria is one of the most outstanding artists of his generation and a central figure in the heterogeneous panorama of Spanish painting of the last three decades. Since he held his first solo show in the Parisian gallery La Ferrière in 1984, Ciria has traced a long career marked by numerous exhibitions and awards. In recent years, his figure has acquired a wide international projection through his solo shows at the Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art in Tel Aviv, Israel (2002), State Tretyakov Gallery Museum in Moscow, Russia (2004), National Museum of Poland, Warsaw (2004), Manuel Felguérez Museum of Abstract Art in Zacatecas, Mexico (2005), Kunsthalle Museo Centro de Arte PasquArt in Bern, Switzerland (2005), Ateneo de Yucatán Museum of Contemporary Art in Mérida, Mexico (2006) , National Museum of Fine Arts of Buenos Aires, Argentina (2007), Museum of Contemporary Art of Santiago de Chile (2009), Valencian Institute of Modern Art (IVAM) (2010) among many other museum spaces.

 

After a first stage linked to an expressionist figuration, José Manuel Ciria stabilized at the beginning of the nineties the main abstract poetic key: the dialogue between the random flow of the stain and the rigor of the geometry, which will mean the critical redefinition of the two fundamental tools of the abstract aesthetics of the 20th century. To this first key will soon be added the artist's interest in the diversity of iconographic records as well as his indefatigable work of experimentation in the field of materials and supports. Starting from the combination of all the possibilities and supported by a solid conceptual reflection, José Manuel Ciria will elaborate throughout the nineties numerous series whose main thematic axes will be time and memory.