The Canary Islands artist Carmela García was awarded the 2025 National Photography Prize this Monday for a body of work that "transforms and questions social imaginaries, making visible realities that have remained on the margins from a gender and queer perspective."
The Ministry of Culture reported in a press release that the jury valued that the artist "recontextualizes photography using very contemporary languages where video, installations, collage, and the use of archival photography are also mixed."
The prize, awarded in the last edition to Jorge Ribalta, is granted by the Ministry of Culture and comes with 30,000 euros.
A trajectory of innovation and social commitment
García is an artist who has worked in various media to reflect on her social and artistic interests, and her work focuses on the need to re-evaluate the construction of history.
According to the Ministry of Culture, García's work "re-narrates the stories that have shaped the collective imagination and revises them on a formal and iconic level from a gender perspective."
In addition, she addresses the feminine world and the recovery of genealogies, and explores the relationships between women in all areas.
The origin of her work, although conceptually rooted in subjectivity and the female perspective, translates into a systematic exploration of specific visual languages, the Ministry adds.
The central axis of her proposal is the dual need to rethink and change the world, and to this end, she uses a wide range of media, starting with photography.
He has received several awards and has exhibited in various museums.
In addition to Ribalta, Laia Abril, Cristóbal Hara, Pilar Aymerich, Ana Teresa Ortega Aznar, Montserrat Soto, and Leopoldo Pomés, among others, have received this award in past editions.
Her work has been exhibited in museums such as the Reina Sofía, the Atlantic Center for Modern Art, MUSAC, and the Valencian Institute of Modern Art. Also in the United States (PS1 MoMA), Japan, Paris, and Amsterdam, and between 1998 and 2015 she was represented by the Juana de Aizpuru gallery in Madrid.
She has participated in top-level international fairs such as Art Basel, Arco Madrid, Paris Photo, and Frieze.
The jury was chaired by Ángeles Albert, Director General of Cultural Heritage and Fine Arts, and Jesús María Carrillo, Deputy Director General of Visual Arts and Contemporary Creation, served as vice-chairman.
In addition, the jury was composed of prestigious artists, editors, artistic directors, and photography historians.