David Escalona
Málaga, 1981
Has a PhD in Arts from the University of Granada and a Master’s Degree in Art Research and Production from the same University The terms he learnt while studying Medicine at the University of Málaga marked his artistic path: the body, disease and the fragility of our existence are some of the topics present in his work. “I don’t try to vindicate disorder, pain or wound. Neither do I try to tackle disability via Art-therapy. I don’t aim to view art as a healing process, but use conflict and contingency as the seeds for the creation or for an opening to new possibilities in art and regarding virtually all aspects of life,” writes the artist.
Escalona has had many solo exhibitions and has taken part in group shows at different well-known, prestigious galleries and centres of art both in Spain and abroad (CACMálaga, Madrid’s Conde Duque Centre, Cervantes Institute in New Delhi, London’s Copperfield Gallery, etc.). He has also received many fellowships, production grants, and awards from different organisations (Iniciarte production grant, from the Regional Government of Andalusia; the Daniel Vázquez Díaz grant, from Huelva’s Provincial Government; an FPU postdoctoral fellowship from the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports, etc.).
David Escalona applies a transversal thought process to his artworks which are like visual metaphors, making up a multiplicity that invites the onlooker to view them at a distance from the hermetic compartments of each respective discipline.
Today, he lives in Málaga and envisions art as a strange device that can convey complex – but not necessarily intelligible – realities. He believes that anything that goes beyond reason can be treated from an aesthetic or artistic angle. As Escalona himself says, “Artworks can become an accident-event which shakes our certainties and forces us to think – they are thus able to effect a transformation in the individual, albeit sometimes an imperceptible one.”
