Teresa Solar Abboud
Teresa Solar Abboud was born in 1985 in Madrid. The artist holds a BFA from Universidad Complutense de Madrid and graduated with an MA in Cultural Studies from Universidad Europea de Madrid in 2009. She currently lives and works in Madrid.
She was a finalist for the Future Generation Art Prize of the Viktor Pinchuk Foundation in Kyiv in 2021 and shortlisted for the same prize in 2020. In 2018 she won the The Current Research Trip of the TBA21-Academy as well as the ARCO – Comunidad de Madrid Award. In 2017 she was a finalist for the Cervezas Alhambra Award for Emerging Art at the ARCO Madrid.
Teresa Solar Abboud has established a distinctive position in contemporary sculpture. Her works let viewers enter a fantastic world of shifting relationships between forms, colors and bodies. Vaguely familiar shapes appear suspended in their surroundings, without reference to scale, human or otherwise. A gentle curve of one of her sculptures, for example, can hold echoes of single-cell lifeforms, tiny sea creatures, marine animals, the fin of a whale, a human limb and mechanical tools. Familiar and strange, endearing and vaguely threatening, the works hold these readings in flux.
In Solar Abboud’s practice space is crucial. Not only the physical space around a sculpture, but also the relationship between works play a major role. Some pieces form groups or interrelate in what the artist calls “ecosystems of thought”: they create a kind of mesh within the larger mesh of reality. Color further modulates the viewer’s perception of the forms, nudging them towards recognition or estrangement without allowing for resolution. Her interest in color spans the main sculptural bodies as well as the architecture of the installations, where color-saturated backgrounds can become as important as the sculptures themselves.
Solar Abboud has said that "feelings of strangeness regarding myself are relevant to understanding my practice." Her exploration of the nature of language—as a bodily process in which utterances are made and sounds modulated—has left her attuned to the contradictions her visual language can embody.
Selected institutional solo exhibitions and commissions include: Self Portrait as a Pregnant Woman, Kunstverein Hannover (2025); Mother Tongue, Hayward Gallery, London (2025); Bird Machine Dream, MACBA Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (2025); Bird Dream Machine, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Torino (2025); Machine Dream Bird, CA2M Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, Madrid (2024); Birth of Islands, The High Line, New York (2024); Life on the surface, Kunsthalle Lissabon, Lisbon (2023); BIG MOUTH. WITHIN BOUNDARIES. OOZING OUT, 1646 – Experimental Art Space, The Hague and Museo Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, Madrid (2021); Luca Vanello & Teresa Solar. On peut mourir d’être immortel, OV Project, Brussels (2021); Madrid (2020); RIDE RIDE RIDE, Index – The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation, Stockholm (2019); Flotation Line, Der TANK, Basel (2018); Cabalga, cabalga, cabalga, Abierto x Obras, Matadero Madrid, (2018); The Circular Desk (with Guillermo Mora), Centre d’Art la Panera, Lleida (2016); The night is dark enough for us to see it, The Green Parrot, Barcelona (2015); All the things that are not there, Matadero Madrid (2014); The Ambassadors, Centro Párraga, Murcia (2012).
Selected group exhibitions and biennials include: Collection. Contemporary Art: 1975–Present, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reine Sofía, Madrid (2026); Sculpture Beyond The Solid, Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (2026); Once we were Gardens, DEO Projects, Kampos, Chios (2025); Clear, Lucid and Awake, TBA21 Thyssen Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Madrid and Sonje Art Center, Seoul (2025); Over Land and Sea, Kunsthaus Hamburg (2025); Heavy Hitters, Tarmak22, Saanen (2025); When Form Comes Alive, Hayward Gallery, London (2024); ¡Doblad mis amores!, Collegium, Arévalo (2023); The Milk of Dreams, 59th Venice Biennial, Venice (2022); Futuros Abundantes, TBA21Thyssen Bornemisza Art Contemporary and Centro de Creación Contemporánea de Andalucía C3A, Córdoba (2022); If words could talk, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Madrid (2022); Future Generation Art Prize 2021 exhibition, PinchukArtCentre, Kyiv (2021); L’objecte del vincle, Casal Solleric, Palma de Mallorca (2021); A recent Art History (1960–2020), Museo de Arte Abstracto Español, Fundación Juan March, Cuenca (2021); The Stomach and the Port, 11th Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool (2021); Desorientalisms, CAAC Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Sevilla (2020); El hecho alegre. Una mecánica popular de los sentidos, La Casa Encendida, Madrid (2019); Una dimensión ulterior, Museo Patio Herreriano, Valladolid (2019); Querer parecer noche, CA2M Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, Madrid (2018); SCHMALTZ, Guimarães, Vienna (2018); Doing Things with Words, Kunstverein Braunschweig (2018); Blind Faith: Between the Visceral and the Cognitive in Contemporary Art, Haus der Kunst, München (2018).
The artist’s work is held in the following collections: Sprengel Museum Hannover; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; MACBA Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona; TBA21 Thyssen Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Madrid; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; Colección Fundación Jumex, Mexico City; Colección Fundación Botín, Santander; Colección CA2M Comunidad de Madrid; Colección MAEC Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores y de Cooperación, Madrid; Colección Fundación Coca-Cola, Madrid, and FRAC Corsica, Corte.