Piedras Blancas, Castrillón, 1973

Chechu Álava is a graduate in Fine Arts, majoring in Painting, from the University of Salamanca. She took furthered studies in Holland and Portugal. Her work has been seen in many solo and group exhibitions obtaining awards and grants. She currently lives in Paris.

A champion of the role of painting as expressed by the title No estaba muerta, estaba de parranda (Elogio de la pintura) [It wasn’t dead, only out partying – In Praise of Painting] she gave to her solo exhibition at Sala Borrón in Oviedo (1999), when she vowed allegiance to a language that, if not despised, has been marginalised by her generation, largely favouring newer media. Since then, Chechu Álava has stuck to that genre that seemed to have vanished or be agonising, when the truth is that it is alive and kicking, through a refreshing and narrative figuration, technically and chromatically experimental.