MARIA JOSE CONCHA

(b. Chile, 1979)

Studied Fine Arts at Universidad Católica de Chile

Maria Jose Concha lived for 7 years in the Chilean Patagonia, the world's southernmost landscape, an experience which transformed her work and becomes the focus of her expressive painting. Concha's work takes those typical phenomena of the landscape and reconstructs, sometimes deconstructing them, into elements which belong to the painting process. "The landscape is transmuted into painting, and the painting into the essence of the landscape."

Concha has been in several solo exhibitions and has participated in collective art shows in Chile, Argentina and the USA, including "Thresholds 2006", an exhibition of the most outstanding final projects of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile's Fine Arts Majors for the previous year, "Arte Ayuda" (2006, 2008 - 2011), "Land Shape" (Santiago, Chile, 2007), "Terra Nova" (Decorazon Gallery, USA, 2007), Collahuasi Art Exhibition Hall, (Iquique, Chile, 2010), "Paene-Umbra / Almost-Shade" (Santiago, Chile 2010), "Material / Landscape" an exhibition at the Art Gallery of Cecilia Palma, Santiago de Chile (2011), artist group show at the Angela Royo Latin American Art Gallery, New York City (2011), and a solo exhibition: "Land of Light and Shade" in the Patagonia (Coyhaique, Chile, 2011). She has also participated in numerous international art fairs including AAF New York City (2008-2011), AAF London Battersea 2011, Red Dot Art Fair London (2008), and Bridge Art Fair Miami (2008).