Discover the contemporary work of Montse Riegas

Montse Riegas (Madrid, 1975)

You could say that I was born with a brush in my hand (with anything I decorated my mother's walls...) and I was also very lucky to have as neighbors the canvases and smell of oil from Isabel Escribano's workshop. In the Carabanchel of the 80s, surrounded by syringes, junkies and dealers, art became in my refuge.

They were complicated times; Saving the young was the social priority. Heroin, AIDS, child prostitution… 

And some brave people from the neighborhood encouraged us to join together, not as gang members, but as revolutionaries of peace. I stayed with Ecology. I fell in love of Mother Earth and made her defense my artistic flag.

Sustainable art: more than just a hobby

At 19, I started I began to take art as a possible profession: I adopted the family name (Riegas) and I started to expose  in Madrid. 

A few years later I moved to I went to Catalonia, seeking to know Dalí's universe, a great influence on the symbolism of my work, and, almost on the rebound, I learned to work with glass and mosaics from the perspective of modernism. That contributed to my work as a whole a deep sense of balance and color. He gave me my shine and my lights.

I have lived in various cities in Spain and traveled around the world learning various techniques and styles and collaborating with various local ecological and social NGOs,  which has ended up giving coherence to my  work and a more global and sustainable personal perspective, which I capture in my paintings to help expand more consciousness.

Art exhibitions and workshops

Did you know that my works have been exhibited (in addition to Madrid), in Toledo, Barcelona, Burgos, Malaga, Lille, Granada and Seville, and I have participated in international art fairs Donosti Artean (San Sebastián, 2014) and Swiss Art Expo (Zurich, 2019) and do I have a permanent exhibition at the Ginkgo Gallery (Granada)?

What's more: I have also  I have organized numerous artistic workshops, such as the First Meeting of Painters of Aljarafe (2019) and I have designed and made scenery, puppets and costumes for various associations and entities, such as Teatro Espolón and Big Living Statues.

Honestly, I think it is not correct. not bad for someone from the neighborhood, who couldn't afford to study Fine Arts… I still have a hard time believing I've managed to get here.

Always keeping in mind my ecological and social manifesto, for each work I start from a specific message that I want to convey. I research different symbols and ancestral arcana that help communicate that idea in a visual way. 

Next, I organize the symbols in a composition that balances the concepts to tell a story, and I adjust the colors using chromotherapy so that the entire narrative of the work has coherence.

I use ecological or recycled materials, with canvas on a sustainable wooden frame and canvas on recycled cardboard being my favorite supports. As for pigments, watercolor and water-based oil are chosen for their low or no toxicity, although I also use Chinese inks in some designs and I am experimenting with organic pigments and ecological oils.

I try to deliver the works by hand; When this is not possible, I minimize the packaging as much as possible (without compromising the safety of the piece) and look for the shipping company that guarantees the shortest route and is responsible for the environment.