I am on the extension of history. I am more than four hundred years old.

I am part of what remains. I am made from what has been. I am what floats after sinking. 

I am a letter, a prayer, a musical phrase, a piece of work.

 This exhibition is part of my past and my present.

AGITATION stands for disturbance and nervous tension, for excitement and a rapid heartbeat. 

Discovery, storms, invasion, religion, stain, menace, wound, illumination, confession, knowledge, ink, gold, waves, force, escape, ownership, darkness, admiration, punishment, black, pilgrimage, possession, destruction, reconstruction, mud.

Back to the present I am trying to bind the unbinding knots with a past, not only reflected in images but also in form and texture. 

The photographs are printed on old, torn and faded paper, full of imperfections. 

I wanted to bring back -in a medium led by perfect reproduction- the unique and the craftsmanship, the beauty of the irregular, the excitement of the unconventional. 

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The artworks are not sterile, nor polished.

We are full of traces.

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Isabel Miquel Arques is mostly a self-taught artist. Experimenting with all kinds of photography, from classical to pinhole cameras. Growing up in a very rich cultural environment but spartan way of living, shaped her way of seeing life and applying photography. This sobriety makes her to work with the strictly basic, camera and natural light.

Complicated sets and bulky props are to far away from her personality. As a photographer she spent a long time trying to find her own way -between tradition and modernity- creating a path where her work is strong influenced by the art of painting in textures, colours and composition.

This is first to perceive in her photo book “Portret met garnaalkroket” (Portrait with schrimp croquet) published by Ludion, where she reflects the artistic Belgian scene by making the portraits of some of their most emblematic members, like Luc Tuymans, Jan Hoet, Michael Borremans, Stephan Vanfleteren, Dirk Braeckman, Jan Fabre…

Since then and living currently in Antwerp -after Barcelona, Amsterdam and London-, she has been fascinated by the relationship in history between her country of birth, Spain, and her country of adoption, Belgium.

The result of her studies and observations about this subject, along with her cogitations on the photography world of today are the core of her last exhibition “Agitation”.