At a glance
Intimate pastel and oil paintings that dissolve the boundaries between the human form and the natural world, filling the industrial halls of Can Framis with soft iconographies.
Why go
This solo exhibition showcases the recent evolution of Sara Bonache Ríos, winner of the 2025 Vila Casas Painting Prize, offering a focused look at her tactile explorations of fragility and metamorphosis.
You'll see
Award-winning painting 'Nocturnal' · New large-scale canvases · Grainy pastel drawings · Botanical and anatomical motifs · Recent textile experiments
Pace of visit
The exhibition is arranged to encourage close inspection of the layered textures and subtle color gradients across the works.
Don't miss
The central painting 'Nocturnal', which earned the artist the 2025 prize for its evocative use of shadow and biological imagery.
Artlovers Tip
General admission covers both this temporary show and the permanent collection of Catalan painting; tickets are available at the desk or through the foundation's booking portal.
Visit during the late afternoon when the natural light in the museum’s transition spaces highlights the subtle, dusty textures of the artist’s pastel works.
Inside the exhibition
Meet the artist
Description
Sara Bonache Ríos presents a major solo exhibition at Can Framis, the contemporary painting museum of the Fundació Vila Casas in Barcelona, Spain. The show brings together recent works by the Vilanova-born artist, whose practice investigates the visceral connections between the human body and botanical forms through a lens of metamorphosis and emotional intimacy.
The exhibition features a wide selection of Bonache’s paintings and drawings, centered around her award-winning piece Nocturnal. Visitors will encounter canvases and paper works characterized by soft, diffuse contours and grainy surfaces created with pastels and oils. These pieces often depict thorns, flames, and organic shapes that suggest both vulnerability and a quiet, internal strength, moving between spiritual abstraction and earthly representation.
As the winner of the 2025 Vila Casas Painting Prize, Bonache represents a significant voice in the current Catalan art scene. Seeing these tactile, delicate works within the stark, grey concrete architecture of Can Framis creates a compelling dialogue, emphasizing the artist’s interest in the material fragility of her medium and the sensory experience of looking.
Worth travelling for?
A quiet, rewarding visit for those who appreciate the intersection of biology and art, and the specific tactility of contemporary painting on paper and canvas.
Sara Bonache Ríos
Artlovers relevance
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