Pilar Albarracín lives and works in Seville and Madrid. She studied Fine Arts at Seville University, where she graduated in 1993, the year in which she began taking part in exhibitions. Her work was quickly acknowledged and by the year 2000 her exhibition activity had become relevant thanks to an audacious style of work which recovers the most visceral roots of Spanish culture, ensuring the inclusion of her work in important exhibitions focussing on the analysis of the Spanish plastic arts of the day. Her work is the result of a constant search, the consequence of the questions she asks herself regarding her existence and the need to communicate situations or problems, both her own and those around her. Albarracín works using different media – photography, performance, installation and video – around which she articulates the three main axes in her work: gender (in an attempt to break down the stereotyped models of masculinity and femininity), inequality (in any of its expressions, be it social, economic or any other kind) and identity (in particular Andalusian identity, which has become a topical cliché for all of Spain, and with special emphasis on the confrontation of established values with more contemporary visions, of tradition with modernization). This is where her creative universe stems from, often with herself as the main character, using irony and caustic criticism to deal with folklore, eating habits, bullfighting, religion… all with identifying symbols enveloped in dualities – tradition-modernization, feminine-masculine, reason-emotion and life-death, the latter a theme that is deeply rooted in the Spanish plastic arts tradition. She has held individual exhibitions in Sala Montcada, Fundació “la Caixa” (Barcelona, 2002), Reales Atarazanas (Seville, 2004), La maison rouge - Fondation Antoine de Galbert (Paris, 2008), Instituto Cervantes (Tokyo, 2010), La Conservera, Centro de Arte Contemporáneo Ceutí (Murcia, 2011), New World Museum (Houston, 2011) and Vitrines sur L’Art – Marseille & Création MUCEM, Marseille (France, 2013). The following national and international group exhibitions are also highly relevant: P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center (New York, 2003), Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid, 2003), Kunstmuseum (Bonn, 2007), Artium de Álava (Vitoria, 2011), Museo de Arte Contemporáneo (León 2012), Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo (Seville, 2013) among others. Her work is represented in museums and art centres around Spain: Artium de Álava (Vitoria), Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León (León), Centro de Arte dos de Mayo (Móstoles, Madrid), Domus Artium 2002 (Salamanca), Fundación NMAC Montenmedio Arte Contemporáneo (Verjer de la Frontera, Cádiz), or Es Baluard Museu d’Art Modern i Contemporani de Palma, and more. E.B.