Marta Ibarrondo

Marta Ibarrondo was born in Bilbao, Spain, and received her education at the University of Pennsylvania. Having spent thirty years in New York City, she currently lives and works in Miami. 
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Artist’s Statement:

My work is rooted in a lifelong fascination with libraries—repositories of memory and witnesses to the evolution of human thought. The Great Library of Alexandria, both a symbol of knowledge and its erasure, has always captivated me. My passion for literature began when my seventh-grade teacher handed me One Hundred Years of Solitude—an experience that fundamentally changed my life.

My ongoing project, ALEXANDRIA, is a natural extension of my lifelong connection to literature. In it, I construct a personal visual library —an archive that materializes the intellectual and emotional imprint these books have had on me. I believe books choose their readers. They chose me once, expanding my world, and again, when I returned to them, compelled to distill their essence and impact into my own visual interpretation.Every piece I create is the result of meticulous research. I seek out materials that not only resonate visually but are historically and conceptually precise. Whether it’s a jazz vinyl from a specific cultural moment, a map from a particular year and country, or an object infused with cultural memory, each element I incorporate is deliberately chosen. These materials serve as a subtext, anchoring each work within a specific historical, literary, or ideological framework.

I also believe words have weight—not just in meaning, but in presence. I build my works through layers of paint, a process that conceals and reveals, ensuring that the words I engage with resist erasure and demand to be seen. By incorporating paper, vintage elements, acrylic, and found objects, I transform reading into a tactile, immersive experience—one that invites viewers to reconsider the power of language in shaping history, memory, and identity.

Thus began ALEXANDRIA, re-reading the books I loved. This exhibit represents the beginning of my visual library; my production continues book by book, across the ages.
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