Exhibition 'The Secret Garden', by Teresa Esteban

The exhibition can be visited at the Tres Culturas headquarters, the Hassan II Pavilion, until 9 September.

Visiting hours:

Monday to Friday, from 8.30 a.m. to 3.30 p.m.

The Fundación Tres Culturas presents its new exhibition, The secret garden, an exhibition by Teresa Esteban in which the artist claims the study of mathematics in Islam as the source of her main themes: arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music.

The secret garden is made up of some thirty works, mostly in marble, together with some mixed media creations on paper or wood. Among them are some of the pieces in the exhibition The protective skyinaugurated at Casa Árabe and which has visited countries such as Iran, Morocco and Saudi Arabia.

In this first exhibition, Teresa Esteban gave free rein to her fascination with Islamic architecture. A field of study and work so broad that, according to the artist herself, she decided to focus on the common elements, such as the use of light, geometry and symmetry or the importance of the interiors as opposed to the external appearance of the buildings.

The pieces that Esteban incorporates to make up this new exhibition are mostly the result of the urgent need to express herself artistically during the confinement that took place as a result of the pandemic. During this impasse, she was forced by circumstances to focus on the essential, reusing materials and resorting to ingenuity to satisfy the need for creation.

A need, which in the words of the director of Tres Culturas, Concha de Santa Ana, stems from the importance of art and beauty as "a balm for the soul, so necessary in times of uncertainty such as the one we live in".

As a result of these prolific weeks of confinement, we enjoy a significant number of works, mostly in small format, in which marble, wood, tin or lead, as well as paper, are the protagonists. Materials which, when converted into art, evoke landscapes, those secret gardens mentioned in the title of this exhibition, although they do not seem to be a possible terrain for sculpture.

With her presence in the exhibition space of the Fundación Tres Culturas, Teresa Esteban "closes the circle" that she once opened with The protective sky. Visitors to this exhibition will undoubtedly enjoy this enigmatic and suggestive work.