Arancha Goyeneche (Santander, 1967) has a degree in Fine Arts from the University of País Vaco. Her work, in which she reinterprets painting as an artistic material, uses materials traditionally alien to this discipline, mainly from the industrial world, such as adhesive vinyl, PVC, photography, fluorescent or projections, among others.

He has had solo exhibitions at the Museo Nacional de Altamira, Museo de escultura Antón in Candás (Asturias), Museo Barjola, Museo de Arte de Santander, El Brocense, CAB, Palacio de Revillagigedo or the Palacete del Embarcadero. In 2019-2020 his exhibition Shared Places toured the various Cervantes Institute venues in Morocco: Marrakech, Fez, Casablanca, Tangier, Tetouan. In 2019 he won the Rambleta Research and Production Grant (Valencia), making the installation Oasis and Desert for the exhibition hall.

His work is represented in public and private collections, highlighting North Collection of the Government of Cantabria, Botín Foundation, L’Oréal Painting Collection, Unicaja, Parliament of Cantabria, the Museum of Art of Santander, Ministry of Social Affairs, Complutense University of Madrid, Casyc, Santander Chamber of Commerce, Junta de Castilla-La Mancha, Caja Burgos Collection, Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Cantabria, Diputación de Cáceres, Cajastur, DA2 Salamanca, Olor Visual de Ernesto Ventós Collection, Los Bragales Collection, Tranche, Lafuente….

In 2020 he received the Plastic Arts Award of Cantabria. He currently works with the galleries Siboney (Santander), Set Spai d’art (Valencia) and Llamazares (Gijón) with which he has been present at Arco, Estampa, Volta Basel, SWAB, Drawing Room Lisboa and Pinta Miami.

Inspiration

One of the influences we have received from Islamic culture is the importance of courtyards, with their beautiful and harmonious designs, which has undoubtedly contributed to broaden our sensory perception through very special images, sounds, tastes and smells.

In a courtyard everything is intentionally cared for. Water is the central element that runs through the channels, ditches and fountains, whose sound brings calm and serenity, both reinforced by birdsong. Profuse vegetation fills the spaces with color and freshness to complete the spell. To all this delicious and festive experience for the senses, you can’t miss the sparkles provided by glazed ceramics. Shiny mosaics on the walls, which reflect the light to produce a more luminous atmosphere, and floors designed to take advantage of the few rays of light that pass through the foliage, or the effects of water reflections on the tiles.

Precisely these cultural interconnections between Morocco and southern Spain, and the sensory effects that we perceive in these common spaces, are the germ of my intervention for the design of the dress that merges the traditional Moroccan djellaba with the Andalusian flamenco dress. In my proposal, the diffuse colorfulness of the different vegetation growing in the courtyards and the light are the essential protagonists. The choice of color and its arrangement throughout the dress is not casual. There is a plastic asymmetry between the front, on which there is a greater variety of color that suggests the lushness of the vegetation, and the back where a more ethereal luminosity becomes more important. The sleeves designed in the form of ruffles evoke bouquets of hanging flowers, so they are treated with different shades.

The technique I have chosen to carry out this work has been a variety of colors of acrylic spray paint (without gas) that allows me to randomly sprinkle droplets of pigments on the surface of the fabric and thus emphasize the atmospheric and spontaneous effect of vegetation and light.