“IT SEEMS THAT THEY CAN BE HEARD NOW” SOLO SHOW BY JULIA SANTA OLALLA
EXHIBITION DATES: 9 MAY – 4 JULY 2025.
SC Gallery celebrates its 17th anniversary with a solo exhibition by the renowned painter Julia Santa Olalla (Granada, Spain, 1985), entitled “Parece que ahora se escuchan” (It seems that they can be heard now).
From 9 May, at 19:00, Spacio Cortes (SC Gallery) will open its doors to this exhibition, offering the public the chance to explore a singular pictorial proposal, where materiality, visual narrative and the poetics of gesture consolidate the relevance of one of the most influential creators of the current art scene.
A dense reading of Julia Santa Olalla’s painting requires combining hermeneutics and epistemology, avoiding formalism. This is a real challenge as we enter the fascinating jungle of the memories of a woman who faces the world with the solidity of her very personal convictions where everything is, and becomes, metaphor. This approach echoes Roland Barthes’, who brought interpretative thought into the realm of symbolic imagery in art. It also facilitates the task of entering an exceptional pictorial world shaped by objects, places, gestures, circumstances, observations, and intuitions — a world that is intellectually demanding for many, but luminous for a few. Its impact is not only emotional but also poetic, and brings to mind the verses of Granada poet Pablo del Águila: “I am a walker of all paths, of all ignored trails, for as long as my feet resist”. In Julia’s work, we encounter a self-reflective dialogue grounded in the world of objects understood as a whole around which the idea of limit and the construction of images revolve, ultimately defining the soul as a temple for contemplation.
That material stain leaning towards informalism which places a broken glass in a corner, giving a glimpse of what is inside to the curious outside, a metaphor for the longings we wish to reveal, although we hide them. That shelf with two pairs of shoes, one of them made of patent leather, the kind you would wear for a performance, but you wouldn’t wear to walk, let alone to walk along lost paths. Or maybe you would. Hence, the antithesis of an image that has raised questions about the situation of the being in the world and that leads us to think about what this porcelain-feathered swan wants to tell us, the one that has decided not to sing its last song and to let itself be carried away by self-absorption. All of these are figures of the inaccurate metamodernity in which we live.
In conclusion, Julia Santa Olalla’s works are a profound and innovative exploration of the inner world of a painter who has been able to materialize the ephemeral nature of those elements of the spirit that we call memories, to bring them out of their quiet and unknown intimacy and turn them into fascinating works of art.
Almudena Blasco Vallés
Diptych “cisne” & “vidrio” mixta sobre lino | 390 x 146 cm | 2025
ABOUT JULIA SANTA OLALLA
Julia Santa Olalla (Granada, 1985) studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Granada.
Julia Santa Olalla represents disturbing images, crossed by something hidden. She shows events with an indefinite beginning and end. Here the narrative ellipses in the montage and what is blocked from view through the pictorial take on importance. This fact does not resolve the images, but poisons them with uncertainty.
Santa Olalla delves into the ordinary. That zoom-in which increases the perception of what surrounds us, whether intimate or strange. This search generates disturbance and enigma. The marvellous is equivalent to the poetisation of reality and the revelation of something contained in the everyday.
His narrative impulse is of minimalist economy where all the detail is in the manifestation of the painting. This happens through different degrees of iconicity and evidencing the process. Santa Olalla leaves the imprint of the painting, he does not represent the thing but presents the energy of the matter.
A deployment of resources from a cold strategy that gives the right space to the accident, avoiding conflicts and corrections to achieve a finish that gives sophistication to his work. Santa Olalla never ceases to talk to us and reflect on painting itself and its narrative power. At the same time, he questions us about the evocative capacity of the visual and about the responsibility we share when it comes to interpreting our reality in the face of ambiguity and indeterminacy.
Diptych “Cisne” & “Vidrio” mixt on linen / 390 x 146 cm / 2025
“Cuadro vega”, “Toldo”, “Zapatos” Oil on linen | 70 x 50 cm | 2025
“Bola”, “Hueco”, “Cisne II” Oil on linen | 70 x 50 cm | 2025
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2025 Contemporary Art Museum. MARCO. Vigo,Spain.
SC Gallery. Bilbao.Spain.
2024 Lorgallery. Santo Domingo.
2023 Las Mirlas. F2 Galería. Madrid, Spain.
2022 La Caraluna. Galeria T20. Murcia, Spain.
Scarpia XXI. De lo espiritual. Arte Contempoáneo en El Carpio. El Carpio, Córdoba, Spain. 2021 La fuente del conejo. Di Gallery.
Sevilla, Spain. 2020 Entre el hueco y la pared. Espacio Iniciarte. Córdoba, Spain. 2019 Sodstory. Palacio Condes de Gabia. Granada, Spain. 2018 Brillo de Cuervo. Amat arquitectos. Granada, Spain.
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2025 Andalucia perpetuum mobile. Caja de Granada Foundation.Spain
2024 Verduyn Gallery. Bruselas. Belgium
Di Gallery Sevilla.Spain
Mroom Gallery. Beijing. Chines
Ubran Spree Gallery. Berlin.germany
2023 Encuentros atemporales, curated by Mariano Navarro. Galería Marlborough. Madrid, Spain. 2022 Erretratu. SC gallery. Bilbao, Spain.
Selfie, curated by Ester Almeda. Galería Moisés Pérez Albéniz. Madrid, Spain. 2021 Las palabras azules. Trafalgar 45. Barcelona, Spain. 2020 Homemade. Di gallery. Sevilla, Spain.
Años 90. Galería La Causa. Madrid, Spain.
El eros en la pintura de hoy. MEAM. Barcelona, Spain. 2019 MACC19. Sala Juán Antonio Díaz Cabra del Santo Cristo. Jaén, Spain.
Treinta. Casa Colón. Huelva, Spain. 2018 De sonidos y silencios. The Blueant. Madrid, Spain.
Visiones figuradas. Centro Cultural Juan Prado. Madrid, Spain. Un día en casa de Sorolla. Museo Sorolla. Madrid, Spain. Mujeres artistas de hoy. MEAM. Barcelona, Spain.
2017 Homeless. Void Projects. Miami, USA. 2016 Cien por Cien. The Makers. Madrid, Spain.
Manos expertas mentes inquietas. The Makers. Madrid, Spain.
WORK IN COLLECTIONS
CA2M Collection, Entre Canales Collection,
Digood Collection, Rucandio Collection, Kells
Foundation, Sorigué Foundation, Cijuela Council,
Villargordo Council, Ubeda Council, Castellar
Council, Cazorla Council, Agua Granada Foundation, University of Jaén.
Fundación Sorigué. Lérida, Spain. Universidad de Jaén. Jaén, Spain.
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For more information contact: scgallery@scgallery.es
