Clara Sánchez Sala

Clara Sánchez Sala - The body will become whatever the milk will become

Artist Biography: Clara Sánchez Sala is a contemporary artist born in 1987 in Alicante, Spain. Her artistic training begins at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Valencia, where she graduated in 2010. Subsequently, she continues her training with a master's degree in Research and Creation in Art, at the same institution. In 2014, she obtains a scholarship at the Institute for Research and Experimentation in Art and Criticism (I.I.E.A.C.) of the Complutense University of Madrid.Clara Sánchez's work focuses on exploring connections between scientific, literary and technological data, from a poetic point of view. Her artistic research focuses on three fundamental themes: the fictional dimension of cartographic representation, the reflection on the landscape as a space of encounter and the Earth as the primordial experience of man.through her work, Clara Sánchez seeks to create a discourse always referring to the complex world of fiction that we humans generate in that incessant strangeness that consists of the encounter with the external world, and that we usually call: "real". Her work is developed in different formats, from painting and sculpture to installation and video art, and has been exhibited in several galleries and museums in Spain, France, Germany, Portugal and the United States. Some of her solo exhibitions include "Hueso" at My Name's Lolita Art Gallery in Valencia in 2014, "Cosmogonías" at Punto Gallery in Valencia in 2016 and "Mecánica de la Mirada" at Pepita Lumier Gallery in Valencia in 2019.In 2016, she received the Focus-Abengoa International Painting Prize in Seville, Spain, and in 2018, she was selected to participate in the Casa Velázquez Artistic Residency in Madrid. Clara Sánchez's work is part of public and private collections in Spain and other countries, including the Focus-Abengoa Collection, the Contemporary Art Collection of the University of Valencia and the Contemporary Art Collection of the Coca-Cola Foundation.

 

The body will become whatever milk it is. "And then let them be brought up in that poor and humility and discipline of religion which their age will suffer, so that, like milk, they may suckle from their childhood and tender age the observance of the holy religion of the teats filled with much doctrine and much discipline from their mistress." With these words, Hernando de Talavera, addresses the novices of the Cistercian monastery of Avila in the Suma y breve compilación that he wrote for them at the end of the 15th century, when he was bishop of that city. For the novices, drinking milk from their mistress meant that entering the convent was like being born again; it also implied that, just like milk for the newborn, the doctrine was for the nun the only appropriate food, and the one that was enough by itself to satiate her. However, milk, in this case, is not only a nutritious food: it is a liquid that, by its properties, informs the person who absorbs it, that is, it can have an impact on his or her physical, psychic and moral traits, even to the point of altering his or her properties. In other words, associating milk with a teaching is tantamount to underlining the power it can and should have. Undoubtedly, breastfeeding evokes motherhood in the broadest sense of the word, for it represents the most vital, nourishing and nourishing care. The breast activates the growth of the child. The act of breastfeeding establishes a physical connection between the bodies, so close that it allows the infant to hear the mother's heartbeat while being fed. A sound that lasts as long as there is life. As if it were a kind of blood transfusion (the mother's milk comes from her own blood), a connection is thus established between the act of breastfeeding and infusing life into a body. A loaf of bronze bread, on the sculpture, a butter nipple with the intention of insufflating life and knowledge by the artist to the modeling.