Una fuerza loca

Lena Laguna Diel (Zurich 1993) presents her first solo exhibition in Spain. The artist, born in Zurich but raised between Cadaqués and Barcelona, and trained as a painter at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Karlsruhe, Germany, references in the title of this exhibition the literary work "Le Rachdingue," translated into Spanish as "Una fuerza loca." Written in 1967 by French author Henri-François Rey, who lived and worked for years in Cadaqués, the novel unfolds in a fictional Empordà town called Caldeya, narrating the desperation of a middle-aged man in search of love through extreme experiences. Lena Laguna uses the title of the book as a pretext for the creation of a body of work that brings her closer to the towns and cities of her childhood, replacing the wild force of the desperate man described in the book with another wild force, much more delicate and subtle. Through experimentation with cyanotype, she continues to develop visual codes that she has cultivated in her pictorial language over the past few years. Combining this production with photographic experimentation, in which her own body emerges as the protagonist, she reflects on the sensitivity of her own skin as the initiator and driver of this wild force.