Cecilia Cubarle is motivated by her love for life and the undeniable urge to paint. In her works she grafts influences from the world of advertising into art. Yet the way in which she handles the subsequent impressions with humour, tenderness and acuity tempers the impertinence of these paintings with gentleness.

Cecilia Cubarle’s art is like a series of dreams. Almost tangible, yet unreal nonetheless –and occasionally bordering on the surreal. The observer is sucked into landscapes, partially liberated from logic and permeated by beauty, that evoke the spirit of René Magritte.

“My work is like a secret diary,” (Mi trabajo es como un diario íntimo) Cecilia Cubarle writes in a note that can be accorded the status of a manifesto for her work.

In the text she underlines her endeavours to discern the relationships between art and the market, feminine and masculine, and to comprehend the constant reciprocity between the aesthetic and the grotesque: “Esthétique ou non-esthétique?” she asks herself in the manifesto.

Cecilia Cubarle was born in 1975 in Córdoba, Argentina. Between 1994 and 2000 she studied at the School of Fine Arts at the university in her home town. Then, armed with a Masters degree, she moved to New York where she became active in the Arts Students League. Her education includes elements of both drawing and graphic art as well as painting. Today she lives and works in Paris.

In 2006 Cecilia Cubarle joined Les nouveauX pop, a group of ten artists from the new pop art generation that includes names such as MariaManuela, Antonio de Felipe, Philippe Huart and William Sweetlove. Together they have staged several joint exhibitions in Europe and Asia.

Totally unexpectedly, in almost Monty Pythonesque manner, a wedding cake appears in one of Cubarle’s works. The confection is crowned by a bride and groom, balanced on top of a London bus and – below that – layers of works by the Great Masters, including Duchamps’ world-famous pissoir and da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. Humour is tempered with echoes from the history of art.

Johan Persson