In the early-1970s, Teresa Lanceta (Barcelona, 1951) chose textiles as her means of artistic expression, pushing back the boundaries of what was—and is—considered art and thus opening up a breach with hegemonic discourses.

In what amounted to a radical aesthetic proposal, her approach to fabrics uses formal elements to pose questions concerning gender and women’s work. Lanceta conceives weaving as a way of creating without preparatory sketches, where figure and ground, object and language, are all built in the one go, accepting the unpredicted, the hits and the misses that happen along the way. For her, accepting the unexpected is a way of learning from a primordial universal code that clearly brings to the fore an internal law that transcends physical, temporal and cultural boundaries. Lanceta confronts everything from an eminently critical feminist and environmentalist stance, eschewing dynamics that try to contemporise textiles and their techniques, in order to affirm and show, through an exercise in reinterpretation generous and respectful with history and its players, that the fabrics make by “nobodies” and forgotten women were—and are—artworks, created through non-technological techniques which are inseparable from the individual.

In her work, Lanceta evinces the import of the work of women that is also present in the non-verbal communication of stories and affects, art traditions and ways of life with which she has maintained a dialogue through her tapestries, paintings, drawings and writings.

Lanceta, who has a a BA in History and a PhD in Art History, has lived in Alicante, Barcelona, Madrid, La Palma, Seville and Marrakech. With countless exhibitions and art events to her credit, in 2000 she showed her weavings from the High and Middle Atlas at Museo Reina Sofía, just a few metres from the Guernica. Her work has also been seen in solo exhibitions at MACBA (2022), IVAM (2022), Azkuna Zentroa Alhóndiga, Bilbao; La Casa Encendida, Madrid (2016); Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid (2000); Ville des Arts, Casablanca (2000); Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Elche (1995); Museu Tèxtil i d’Indumentària, Barcelona (1989). She has also taken part in the biennials of Cairo (2009), São Paulo (2013, 2014) and Venice (2017). Works by Lanceta may be found in the collections of Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid; Caja de Ahorros del Mediterráneo; Fundación José Cuervo, Mexico; Pérez Art Museum, Miami; MACBA, Barcelona; Fundación Coca-Cola and Colección Endesa.