The contest, open to the participation of any artist in the world, is endowed with 10,000 euros, being the only international prize of these characteristics that is awarded in the world and has already become an indisputable reference in the field of plastic arts.

On September 2, 2021, the opening ceremony of the exhibition of selected and awarded works took place in an event open to the public, but in which the winning work of this year has not yet been revealed.

The exhibition of selected works has 428 paintings and 24 sculptures and among all of them, there is the winner, in addition to the finalists chosen in this edition. The expected jury decision took place on September 15, 2021, when H.M. Queen Sofía, Honorary President of the Spanish Association of Painters and Sculptors, presented the award that bears her name, thus revealing the winner of the 56th edition of the award.

The the Jury decided to name finalists the works of:

César Orrico, a man from Logroño who lives in the capital, in whose works the sensuality of an anatomy mix of coldness and warmth flows that gives him strength and expressiveness, with the bronze entitled “Bifronte” (177x32x28), a reinterpretation of the classical canons in the sculptural for.

Lidia Sancho, an acrylic entitled "Otro sol" (Acrylic / canvas, 180 × 180), by the artist from Soria with an overwhelming power of color, in which her personal iconography of powerful scopic impulse is evident.

Lorna Benavides, a Costa Rican living in Spain with a sculpture of direct carving in marble entitled "Elogio de la Jóvenes" (Buscaró marble carving, 84x37x37) that can be defined as "figurative abstract" and in which the matter is expressed in its own language, contributing its vitality and the eternity of matter.

Mikel Pinto Muñoz, a young artist from Bilbao living in Madrid, with a large canvas that shows the best of figurative expressionism applied to portraiture, with clear influences from the Prado masters, whom he visits regularly, entitled "The Last of the Council" (Oil / canvas, 195 × 195).

Her Majesty Queen Sofía presided over the Jury's decision and presented the “Reina Sofía Prize for Painting and Sculpture” that the Spanish Association of Painters and Sculptors delivers annually, which in this 56th edition went to José Manuel Martínez Pérez for his work 'Spring 2020. Tribute to old age'

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MOOD The Art of Today has had the pleasure of inter- viewing each of the finalists and also the winner. On the following pages we introduce each of them.

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He has lived and worked in Madrid for about 20 years, although his hometown is Lepe (Huelva), in southern Spain. He has been dedicated to sculpture and drawing for about 25 years. Parallel to his artistic activity, he works as a teacher at the ESDIP Art School in Madrid where he teaches anatomy and life drawing.

‘Recently my work ‘Spring 2020, homage to old age’ was the winner of the 56 Reina Sofía award. It was an extraordinary joy for me and a great impulse to improve as a sculptor and as a person. I am grateful to the wonderful jury of the award and to the AEPE (Spanish Association of Painters and Sculptors) The work is a tribute to the elderly who died from the pandemic. He talks about the loneliness and abandonment they have suffered; it was inevitable not to become sensitive to their situation.’

‘Now I am making a crucified and a portrait of a friend. I have some group exhibitions and some individual exhibitions in view, so I am working on innovative ideas that are still in their infancy and need to be matured.’

In October he will exhibit at the MEAM in Barcelona one of his works made with Andrés Lasanta, called ‘Bitroco’, which has received an honourable mention in the FIGURATIVAS 2021 contest.

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‘I have always dedicated myself to art. I started studying Bachelor of Arts in Logroño and later Fine Arts in Madrid. Then I continued developing my work as a sculptor in some scholarships and workshops, and for more than ten years I have dedicated myself full time to the production of my work.’

He recently received the First Prize for Sculpture at the 15th International ARC Salon Competition in the United States. In 2019 he was awarded the Jean Asselbergs Prize from the Taylor Foundation in Paris, and in 2016 the Flechazo Prize from the Ma- drid Contemporary Art Fair, FLECHA.

For the 56 Reina Sofía Prize for Painting and Sculpture 2021, he chose to present his work ‘Bifronte’, a bronze sculpture measuring 176x30x30 cm.

‘Besides being my last sculpture, I chose it for its symbolism. Bifronte means two fronts or two faces, one looking at the beginning and one at the end. A paradigm of existential duality that I have represented as a man who looks to the future behind the mask of his own self. A doubling of being and time, where the main figure is able to observe two realities simultaneously.'

‘I am currently participating in an exhibition at the European Museum of Modern Art in Barcelona in connection with the award received by the Art Renewal Center and I will shortly open a solo exhibition in France and another in Spain. In January I will also exhibit a representation of my work in Holland and throughout the year I plan to participate in some Contemporary Art fairs in Europe and the United States.'



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INSTAGRAM: @cesarorricosculptor

FACEBOOK: Cesar Orrico Sculptor

She lives and paints from her workshop in Soria, a province in northern Spain, located in the eastern part of the autonomous community of Castilla y León. After studying Artistic Baccalaureate, she completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts (2006-2011-Extraordinary Prize) and a Bachelor of Art History (2007-2011), both at the University of Salamanca and ABKM Hogueschool Zuyd (Maastricht, Holland). For this reason, it could be said that she has been linked to the art world for about 18 years.

Among Awards and Distinctions we name the recent recognition as Finalist in the 56th Reina Sofía Prize for Painting and Sculpture, the Project Prize I Artistic Creation Contest - County Council of Soria, the First Prize for the Young Art Program of Castilla y León, the 4th Prize of the XVI Competition Cultural Virgen de las Viñas and the Medal of Honor in the 28th Edition of the BMW Painting Prize awarded by Her Majesty the Queen Doña Sofía, among others.

She has enjoyed residency and artistic production scholarships, among which we can highlight the Antonio Gala Foundation Scholarship for Young Creators in its XI Promotion (Córdoba) and the Painting Scholarship of the Royal Academy of History and Art of San Quirce (Segovia).

‘I presented to the Reina Sofía Prize the work entitled Another Sun, an acrylic on canvas measuring 180 x 180 cm. This work demonstrates the capacity of autonomous colour to transgress the sur- face of the canvas and reflect another dimension, without the need to be a screen for realities alien to the painting itself.’

How do you see the future?

‘I am currently developing a winning project at the 1st Artistic Creation Contest. This project consists of the production of paintings and traveling exhibition in chapel format by the houses of Sorianos in the rural environment. At the same time, I carry out work production for two individual exhibitions, one in Soria and the other in Madrid. At the pictorial level, my present interest is to investigate in depth the relationship of pictorial matter with space.'

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She was born in San José, Costa Rica and moved to Spain to continue the Fine Arts studies that she had started in her country. She had already dedicated more than 40 years to art. She resides and has her workshop in the town of L'Eliana, Valencia.

'In my career I have won several awards, such as the XVI Manolo Valdés de Altura Sculpture Prize (Castellón) and the I Quart de Poblet Sculpture Prize (Valencia), and for three consecutive times I have been a finalist in the 54, 55 and 56 Reina Sofía Prize for Painting and Sculpture from the Spanish Association of Painters and Sculptors (AEPE).

In the last edition of the Reina Sofía Prize, I presented a torso in Buscaró pink marble entitled "In Praise of Youth". I chose this work because it represents the emerging force of life that always looks forward optimistically. I think that in these uncertain times we can use some positivism.'

And speaking of the future, she always has projects and develops her work constantly in the workshop, without waiting to have exhibitions or contests, because she considers that the work should not be subject to calls, but be founded in hours and hours dialoguing with the subject in the sol- itude of the study. Only in this way can she develop a sincere and congruent work.

Her preferred artists are the English Hepworth and Moore, and also Brancusi and Arp. 'I like how, starting from figuration, they managed to lead to new and highly personal languages.'

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Madrid resident painter in the Chamberí area, a stately residential area with a variety of cultural attractions, including the Sorolla Museum and Art Gallery.

Mikel has been painting all his life, since his father is a painter and he had the opportunity to experience the profession and his passion for art since he was a child, in his own home. During adolescence he abandoned painting when he was disappointed with the current state of the art and focused on studying literature, which led him to graduate in English Philology from the Compultense University of Madrid.

During his university training, he regained his love for painting by visiting the Prado Museum regularly and decided to start an artistic career.

Before leaving painting during adolescence, he had the opportunity to win several outdoor painting awards, such as the 2010 edition of the Goya open-air competition in the city of Bilbao, of which he won the first prize when he was just 15 years old.

‘My work is titled 'The Last of the Council'. It is a canvas measuring two meters by two meters, painted in oil, and made with a loose technique, with expressive glazes and brushstrokes. The painting

represents a group of very young priests walking together while passing through an orange, twilight background, among whose turbulences the historical drift of an in- stitution as influential as the Catholic Church can be distinguished. In some way, the picture is based on the contrast between this historical drift and the incipient faith of those young priests, hardly aware of what the weight of this drift entails in the face of materialism, the lack of transcendence and the antimetaphysical character of the modern western societies.’

Why did you choose just that work?

‘Because I think it represents an interesting and unusual contrast.’

Mikel has several projects, although he cannot talk about all of them. His main project is to continue standing for the many daily paradoxes of postmodernity, in which so habitually, as the song said, ‘you can see a Bible crying next to a water heater.’

What would you say to your readers?

‘That they continue to be in- terested in art, but that they also do not forget their roots, of Greece, Rome, the Romanesque, the Gothic, the Renaissance or the Baroque.’