Imma Vallmitjana is a painter who takes her time when she paints. Her works usually record and pinpoint specific moments in her life, and also in our own lives, as they reflect the world in which many of us choose to live: a world of rhythm and sensual melodies, magic moments, and scenes in which our most intimate experiences take place.
Her paintings evoke pop music, exotic journeys, fashions, friends and fidelities; Imma expresses a mélange of emotions in her art. Snapshots, postcards, record covers…her soundtrack impregnates every square centimeter of her work.
In her paintings, the artist tells a tale of Swinging London, and of journeys of initiation, from Goa to Formentera or from Liverpool to New York. The story forms a spiral which suddenly folds back over itself to return to its origins and follow a path to wherever life leads it.
From Balenciaga to Mary Quant, from Vivienne Westwood to Custo Dalmau, from New Delhi to Barcelona, from Torredembarra to Vespella de Gaià, emotions have no frontiers, and if somebody should try to raise a border, fortunately, there are lucid artists, like Imma to demolish them with lively and serpentine brushstrokes.
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Imma Vallmitjana es una pintora que se toma su tiempo para pintar. Sus obras generalmente rememoran y fijan momentos concretos de su vida y también de la nuestra ya que reflejan el mundo en que muchos de nosotros decidimos vivir.
Un mundo de ritmo y sensuales melodías, momentos mágicos y esos escenarios en los que transcurren nuestras más intimas vivencias. Sus pinturas evocan la música pop, viajes exóticos, tendencias, amigos y fidelidades. Todo un entramado de emociones que Imma fija sobre las telas. Instantáneas, postales, carátulas de vinilos… Y es ahí donde su banda sonora impregna cada centímetro cuadrado de su obra.
El hilo que esta artista traza con sus pinturas: el Swinging London, los viajes iniciáticos; de Goa a Formentera o de Liverpool a New York, forman una espiral que de repente se repliega sobre sí misma para volver a los orígenes, y seguir su camino hacía donde la vida le lleve.
De Balenciaga a Mary Quant, de Vivienne Westwood a Custo Dalmau, de Nueva Delhi a Barcelona, de Torredembarra a Vespella del Gaià, y es que las emociones no tienen fronteras. Y si alguien intenta levantarlas, afortunadamente existen artistas tan lúcidos como Imma, para derribarlas con enérgicas y sinuosas pinceladas.
Manuel Valls
Barcelona, Enero 2011
Art & Design Barcelona
During the nineties I paint the interiors of my grandparents’ house where I spent every summer of my happy childhood and youth. Rooms full of objects and aged furniture but full of life. An accumulation of books, papers, mirrors games and environments of a lost past.
I remember with emotion the Saturdays of the end of the 50s, casposa was Francoist, when my brother went to buy the weekly adventure magazine: Capitán Trueno. There were also tebeos and in the sixties there were women’s magazines showing up; and the exciting trips with 20 years old consisting on going with a friend to the French border in a small car to buy forbidden books and comics: Metal Hurlant…
From the classics of the twentieth century to the fascinating current world of comics, they always appear and inspire my paintings.
When painting interiors I began opening drawers: photos, letters, maps, stories, work, keys, watch parts, umbrellas and even a pistol start to become the protagonists. Gradually my stuff starts appearing… Secrets and intimacies over several generations.
I love every animal on earth, but there always were a cat at home. Maginet was my father’s cat, and he was my star after I inherited him. He was my inspiration for many paintings and drawings.
There are other animals like iguanas, dogs and turtles through all my pictoric universe.
First my sisters’ 45 rpm vinyl with their front and back covers: Johnny Halliday, Silvye Vartan and Françoise Hardy. After that the ones I bought appear: Beach boys, Rollings, Beatles .. Then the mythical 33 rpm vinyl LPs enter the scene in the seventies and eighties, and finally a few CDs.
With acrylic, a technique to which allows me to work more freely and spontaneously, I begin this themed series inspired by images I saw in my father’s books, a biologist specializing in cytology: protozoa, amoebas, mitochondria, diatoms …. I started with circular shapes, cells that evolve, multiply, new forms or twisted strands of DNA are added, with orbits and planets.
Imma’s creative universe is an intimist patchwork that introduce us into a deep and emotional journey.