Winner of the 2023 Velázquez Plastic Arts Prize for her extensive career as a multimedia artist, Marisa González is a pioneer in the use of new technologies from the 1970s to the present day.
She was born in Bilbao in 1943, and lives in Madrid. She studied Piano to degree level at the Bilbao Conservatory, and graduated in Fine Arts at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Complutense University of Madrid (1971), followed by a Master’s Degree at the Art Institute of Chicago in the Generative Systems Department (1973) and a BFA at the Corcoran School of Art, Washington D.C. (1976).
Her entire artistic career has been influenced by her systematic relationship with the constantly changing technologies of contemporary society, from her first works with photocopiers in the early 1970s, followed by faxes, and subsequently with computers and video.
In the symbiosis between art and technology, and using the assembly of different techniques as her method, Marisa González has generated a new language that she has codified herself. The reproduction of images and fragments, and their repetition, or the generation of forms as emblematic values of the contemporary, can be found throughout her work.
Feminism, remembrance and industrial archaeology, recycling and ecology, likewise paying attention to processes of exclusion and vulnerability, are other themes that have characterized her career.
She is tirelessly piecing together archives, documents, and industrial archaeology, always ready to stand up against social inequalities and ecological hazards in our globalized world.
Her works are held in numerous museums and collections, and she has had over 60 solo exhibitions and 150 joint exhibitions, such as the Venice Biennale, the Reina Sofía National Museum Art Centre, Tabacalera (Madrid), or the Barcelona Contemporary Culture Centre (CCCB). She has been cited as a reference in numerous publications, such as Arte en España (1939-2015) by Jorge Luis Marzo and Patricia Mayayo, or La fotografía en España. De los orígenes al siglo XXI.
She leads workshops and gives conferences and seminars on New Technologies, for which she is one of the pioneering artists.
