SPECTATING FROM THE STANDS
Exhibition by Olga Capdevila
25.11.2021 - 08.01.2022
Opening of the exhibition, Thursday, November 25 at 7:00 p.m. in ACVIC Centre d'Arts Contemporànies
Illustration: Observatori, Olga Capdevila
Olga's drawings accompany me. In a literal and figurative sense.
On one wall of my house, a small drawing takes on a large presence, in which a row of girls braid each other’s hair ... it has always seemed to me a powerful feminine version of the endless column. And when I leave the house and turn the corner, I am struck by the people, framed in the windows of a bar, ordering a sandwich.
I see Olga's drawings, and I think about them.
Now I am remembering a couple of her gifs seen on Instagram: what shall I wear today, a hat or a cap? and all possible dilemmas come to mind (by the way, she showed up in a hat later in school). Or another in which she talks about love, the bond between two people, with a drop of ink that glides from one figure to another at chest height.
There is a poem by Isabel Escudero that I can't get out of my head "A little hyphen / between two numbers: / was that my life?". For me, all of Olga’s work explains this hyphen, that is, life with all its complexity and nuances, and with a tone similar to this verse. Her lines on the page or on the screen, almost always white, are the result of careful and intelligent attention to everything that happens around her. Just look at her sketchbooks, of wonderful density and essentiality.
I keep searching in poetry ... and don't ask me why, but in some verses her work resonates with me, like Adrienne Rich's: "Tearing off old wedding sheets to make dust rags?" or in one by Francisca Aguirre: "I was so exhausted by the effort of staying still / that I began to think that maybe if I started running I might relax"
And I end with an idea from Montserrat Abelló, which I think must be inside Olga’s head: “Dreaming of inexhaustible pencils”.
Isabel Banal Xifré
Olga Capdevila (Malla, 1986) is an illustrator and a creative director. A graduate in Art and Design and also in illustration, she works in such varied fields as publishing, advertising, press, textiles and animation. Since 2012, she has been combining freelance projects with her own projects, which satisfy her bibliomania and her desire for transversality. Her notable advertisingcampaigns and editorial work include Barcelona City Council (Christmas 2020, Sant Jordi 2017 Campaign) and clients such as Netflix, Filmin, The New Yorker, El País and Estrella Damm.She has published several books, both for children and adults, and has been recognised with awards including the Grand Laus 2020, the National Prize for the best published book 2017 and the Junceda Prize 2017. She currently lives in Barcelona where she has developed, along with other creatives, the BLOC Multistudio project. She combines her work as a freelancer with teaching at Massana and IDEP schools.
