The Blood of Heloise, 2005
b. 1952 in Valencia, Spain
Lives and works in New York
Elena del Rivero is an artist with a large body of works on paper. She has, however, experimented with other mediums like photography and video. Her work develops slowly building visual narratives that are completed with carefully chosen titles that favor double entendres. She has always been interested in transforming decay and in reusing her discarded works, putting them back together as a metaphor for the ritualistic power of mending life.
Employing simple materials and humble gestures to produce emotionally resonant installations, her work is often built upon actions like cleaning and sewing that have a domestic tenor. She brings these activities from the private space of the home into the public arena of the gallery giving her works the familiarity of memory but with a surreal and poetic charge.
Major grants include a Rockefeller Foundation Residency in Bellagio, Italy in 2005, New York Foundation for The Arts Grant in 2002 and 2001, Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant in 2002 and 1991, Creative Capital Grant in 2001, The Prix de Rome at Academia de Bellas Artes in Rome, 1988, among others. In 1995, Del Rivero represented Spain at the Johannesburg Biennal.
Her work is in the collection of Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, ME; Pollock Gallery of Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX; Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD; Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Yale University, New Haven, CT; National Gallery of Art, Washington DC; Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, MA; Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL; Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, AR; American Express, San Francisco, CA; Johnson & Johnson, New York, NY; Coca Cola Foundation, Madrid, Spain; Fundacio La Caixa, Barcelona, Spain; IVAM, Valencia, Spain; Patio Herreriano, Valladolid, Spain; Artium, Vitoria, Spain; Fundación Caja de Burgos, Caja Burgos, Spain; Museo de Pamplona, Navarra, Spain; CGAC, Santiago de Compostela, Spain; and the Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain; among others.