Marta Ibarrondo

Marta Ibarrondo is living proof that words carry weight—and sometimes they make the leap from the page straight onto the canvas. Born in Bilbao, Spain, and now splitting her days between Miami's heat and New York's heartbeat, Marta's art is a visual love letter to the stories that shaped her. Inspired by the day her seventh-grade teacher slipped her a copy of One Hundred Years of Solitude, Marta fell into the spell of books and never quite crawled out.

Raised in the Catholic faith, Marta has spent years reflecting on the stories we inherit without questioning—particularly those that have legitimized gender inequality under divine authority. Her "And God Created Woman" series confronts the exclusion of women from ecclesiastical structures through a bold artistic intervention: she juxtaposes sexist vintage advertisements with biblical verses, revealing the uncomfortable continuity between religious and commercial narratives of gender roles. In works like Holy Bible, 2025 (TITUS 2:25), she applies 20 layers of acrylic paint over actual Bible pages, systematically erasing everything except passages that explicitly relegate women to submission. Automatic washers, 2025 continues this exploration, superimposing biblical verse titles over vintage ads in bold capitals, showing how religious doctrine and mass media have historically reinforced one another.

Whether she's stripping away centuries of tradition or mapping American dreams, Marta believes words carry weight not only in meaning but in physical presence. Her layering process—both visual and conceptual—ensures that words emerge with the gravity they deserve, resisting erasure and demanding to be seen.

Acrylic, paper, found objects, jazz vinyls, vintage ads, sacred texts—Marta's materials carry history, texture, and a touch of rebellion. In a world that's increasingly impatient, her work invites you to slow down, look closer, and remember. When she's not building her visual library, Marta can be found practicing the fine art of siesta, plotting her next literary love affair, or reminiscing about her days mime-studying at La Sorbonne. (Yes, really.)

As Marta would say: never vanilla.

‍