Arcadia

Aída Pascual Benito’s photographs are born from her desire to capture moments of contemplation, and consequently, they emanate a meditative tranquillity. The viewer is gripped by an indescribable longing that causes personal memories to dissolve into the images. A woman in a black evening gown stands in the midst of a snow-covered landscape. In another image, a woman looks out from coastal cliffs beneath a turbulent sky. An unlikely wanderer with jacket and hat stands on broad plains in an autumnal haze. The scenes’ unexpected composition and mysterious lighting lends them a magical atmosphere. The Spanish photographer’s profoundly romantic works present nature as a refuge from the tumult of daily life.

“Arcadia is an imaginary place, a utopia in which nature and man exist alongside one another in perfect harmony,” the artist explains. The photographs can be understood as modern reinterpretations of Caspar David Friedrich’s “Der Mönch am Meer” (The Monk by the Sea) or Ernst Ferdinand Oehme’s “Prozession im Nebel” (Procession in the Fog). Like the works of these famous Romantic painters, Aída Pascual Benito’s photographs are dominated by landscape, with human subjects standing in awe before nature’s vastness.

The Spanish artist’s gripping photographs defy temporal categorisation, an ambiguity that was entirely deliberate, so the images can impart a unique story for each individual viewer.

Since completing her photography studies in Madrid and Alicante, Aída Pascual Benito’s calm, poetic landscapes have appeared in numerous exhibitions.

Group Exhibitions

2014	Ex Oculis, Collective Flare, Sala Virgen del Río Tarazona and Center Villa de Móstoles, Spain
	Artistas burgalesas, Teatro Principal, Burgos, Spain
2013	Minimos, Gallery Zero, Madrid, Spain
	Room Art Fair, Collective Abunai, Madrid, Spain
	PhotoEspaña 12, EFTI, Madrid, Spain