Sílvia Martínez Palou

Silvia Martínez Palou, architect and plastic artist, trained at the School of Architecture of Barcelona (ETSAB-UPC) and the Fine Arts Faculty of Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), where she earned her doctorate. She also studied advanced engraving techniques at Escola d’Arts i Oficis – Llotja in Barcelona. She combines her work as a restorer of historic buildings with her artistic practice. Martínez Palou primarily uses the traditional monotype technique, allowing her to work on originals with experimental processes to achieve rich colors and textures. Inspired by contemporary architecture from 1950 to 1970, when rationalism was tinged with local influences, she recreates iconic buildings such as Josep Lluis Sert’s Peabody Terrace towers at Harvard, Alison and Peter Smithson’s Robin Hood Gardens in London, and Antoni de Moragas’ works in Barcelona. Technically, she works in layers that capture routine yet distinctive details, revealing small stories that reflect today’s social richness. She extracts and decomposes the buildings’ geometries into successive layers showing materials, colors, and shadows, transforming architecture into autonomous compositions. Centered on a main axis, the series explores variations of texture, light, and color which, though flat, achieve great depth through layered shadows, suggesting inhabited spaces with figures and architects. Silvia Martínez Palou has recently exhibited in galleries across Barcelona, Luxembourg, and Brussels, and was a finalist for the ARTFAD Prize (2011, 2019) and Fundación Vila Casas Painting Prize (2013).