Mar Arza's studio, in the Nou Barris neighbourhood, is a clean and tidy space, almost aseptic, with a warm and silent light. She tells me about her beginnings, and how, after living in different cities, she returned to Barcelona, where she feels more at home. Mar speaks and moves with the same delicacy that is evident in the work she is doing, neatly arranged on the tables. She gives the impression that she feels more comfortable observing and listening than talking, as if she prefers to reserve explanations and words for her work.
> Mar Arza is a visual artist trained in Fine Arts at the Faculty of Valencia and at the Carnegie Mellon School of Art, Pittsburgh, USA. She later studied a Master's degree in Sculpture at Winchester School of Art, in the UK. The approach to the Anglo-Saxon education system, both in Great Britain and in the USA, results in a higher level of autonomy in professional practice.
She participates in solo and group exhibitions (Barcelona, Valencia, Castelló, Palma, Madrid, Brussels and London) and attends several art fairs (Arcomadrid, ArtBrussels, Untitled Miami, The Solo Project-Basel, ParisPhoto, Drawing Now-Paris, SP Arte-Sao Paulo, Kiaf Contemporary-Seul, ArteLisboa, Estampa, ArteSantander).
The solo exhibition at the RocioSantaCruz Gallery in Barcelona, in 2016, wins the GAC prize for the best emerging artist exhibition, awarded by the guild of galleries and DKV.
In 2018 she presents the project En va, at Sala Miserachs, in La Virreina Centre de la Imagen, curated by Valentín Roma, which explores the mechanisms of vision and concealment that keep control in the shadows.
In 2019, her exhibition Enser, at the Galería Cáñamo in Castelló, reflects on loss and the trace of presence that is prolonged both in the body and in memory.
In 2020, the exhibition Le Hasard Jamais, at the RocioSantaCruz Gallery, acquires the star of monumentality in a game of reflexes that condemns chance subject to a fictitious system of lots.
In 2021, she was awarded the Senyera prize by the València City Council, which recognises and promotes the career of artists linked to the territory.
In 2022 she exhibits at the IVAM, in a project in which her sculptures dialogue with those of Juli González.