Ben Uri Research Unit

for the study and digital recording of the Jewish, Refugee and wide Immigrant contribution to British visual culture since 1900.


Marisol Cavia artist

Marisol Cavia was born in Salamanca, Spain in 1952. She was educated in Spain and later immigrated to England in 1973, where she pursued further education in the arts, studying ceramics as an undergraduate. She subsequently established herself as a versatile artist across a range of media and techniques, and has participated many exhibitions across Europe, including at Ben Uri, among other locations.

Born: 1952 Salamanca, Spain

Year of Migration to the UK: 1973

Other name/s: Marisol Cavia Sánchez


Biography

Mixed-media artist Marisol Cavia was born in 1952 in Salamanca, Spain, and grew up in the northern city of Laredo. She studied for a degree in Language at the School of Commerce in Bilbao before moving to England in 1973. She took courses in drawing and sculpture at the School of Liberal Arts in Surrey and earned a Bachelor’s degree in Ceramics from the University of Westminster.

Cavia’s work spans a variety of media, including sculpture, photography, film,mixed media and installation. More recently, her work has acquired a greater emphasis on audience participation; some of her installations have involved more than one hundred participants in a single showing. Cavia’s practice explores themes of love, death, friendship, and deception. Her art has been shown in solo and group exhibitions in the UK, Spain, Germany, Italy, and Austria. Cavia has also served as an organiser of the London Biennale, for which she wrote the 2002 exhibition catalogue. Her pieces were included in the 2002, 2004, and 2006 editions of the exhibition. In her performance Rangoli: La Estetica y Prostetica del Cuerpo Femenino (2017), she explored the female body, and the objects and materials associated with it, using the traditional Indian art form of ‘rangoli.’ In this practice, designs are drawn on the floor of one’s home, often using chalk and colourful powders, as a way to welcome the good faith of gods and goddesses.

In 2009 Cavia’s work Touch me if You Dare (Ben Uri Collection) featured in Ben Uri's group exhibition, Schmatte Couture: Art and Performance Inspired by the World of Clothing, guest curated by graphic artist, Sarah Lightman, after which it was acquired for the permanent collection. The piece has subsequently been described as: ‘A seamstress’ nightmare where her workplace has become a semi-real dungeon […]. Her tools have become her nightmare. Before, she had associated them with drudgery, toil and the routine of hard work. They were a nuisance, but nothing more. Now, her tools have become vicious and her nightmare real. A heart-shaped pincushion stabbed mercilessly thousands of times by small, spiteful pins; velvet reams of blood gushing from the cushion in uniformed synchronicity. Her torments have become almost physical. Her nightmare is real […],’ (MacDougall, p. 44). In 2020, during the Covid pandemic, the work was selected for the collection-based online exhibition, Interstices - Discovering the Ben Uri Collection, guest curated by renowned London gallerist, René Gimpel.

Marisol Cavia currently lives and works in London, England. In the UK public domain, her work is represented in the Ben Uri Collection.

Related books

  • Paloma Bienert Barberán, Javier Fernández Rubio, Marisol Cavia, Victoria O'May, Pablo Müller, Esta Continua Niebla de Llevarte (Santander: El Desvelo, 2023)
  • Sarah MacDougall ed., Interstices - Discovering the Ben Uri Collection Guest curated by René Gimpel (London: Ben Uri Gallery, 2020), pp. 44-45
  • Marisol Cavia, London Biennale 2004 (London: London Biennale Associates, 2004)
  • Marisol Cavia, London Biennale 2002 (London: London Biennale Associates, 2002)

Public collections

Related organisations

  • London Biennale (organiser)
  • School of Liberal Arts (student)
  • University of Westminster (student)

Related web links

Selected exhibitions

  • Interstices (group exhibition), Ben Uri Gallery, London (2020)
  • Only Women (group show), CNFoto, Torrelavega, Spain (2019)
  • TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT (group exhibition), Arthouse, London (2013)
  • Muerto de Amor (group exhibition), Birla Millenium Gallery, London (2010)
  • Schmatte Couture (group exhibition), Ben Uri Gallery and Museum, London (2009)
  • Day & Night Magic (group show), Stracci al Vento II, Graz, Austria (2007)
  • London Biennale (group show), London (2006, 2004, 2002)
  • What is the Colour of Music (group show), RGBCastle, Turin, Italy (2006)
  • Hidden-Voices (two person exhibition), Kingsgate Studios, London (2005)
  • Maze Self (group show), Crypt Gallery, London (2005)
  • Infidelity Installation (solo installation), Changing Channels, Berlin, Germany (2003)
  Marisol Cavia
   
Ben Uri collection

Marisol Cavia in the Ben Uri collection

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Marisol Cavia]

Ben Uri library

Publications related to [Marisol Cavia] in the Ben Uri Library