B I O G R A P H Y
Laura Basterra Sanz (b. 1979), a multidisciplinary artist from Barcelona, obtained a BA in Fashion Design from URLL and pursued postgraduate studies in textile printing techniques. Currently, she is expanding her practice through sculpture and spatial art at the RHoK Academy in Brussels.
Since settling in Brussels in 2018, she has focused on abstract painting. Her gestural compositions address social themes like health and freedom, exploring the power of colour to unveil the infinite dimensions and qualities of the self.
Her exhibitions include a presentation at the PILAR Center for Contemporary Art and Science in Brussels and international shows in London and France. She secured a residency in Motoco, supported by Kunsthalle Mulhouse and the François Schneider Foundation.
In 2025, she was awarded the International Prize of the Paul Smith's Foundation and Winsor & Newton. Her work has been featured in Wallpaper* Magazine and is part of private collections worldwide.
E X H I B I T I O N S
2025 - "Defining Your Point Of View", Paul Smith Art Space Mayfair, London, UK. (Upcoming)
2025 - Paul Smith Store Antwerp, Antwerp, BE. (Upcoming)
2025 - "On Beauty", Pictorem Gallery, London, UK. (Upcoming)
2025 - "The Beautiful Art Show", Online, Ideelart Gallery, London, UK.
2025 - "Essential: Essence In A Space", RHoK Academie Woluwe, Brussels, BE.
2024 - "A Letter From A Friend", Bacio Collective, Bern, CH.
2024 - "Separation, Connection, Circulation", GC De Rinck, Brussels, BE.
2024 - "We Art XL Coup De Coeur", Abbaye de La Cambre, Brussels, BE.
2024 - "La Fin Des Semelles", Les Semelles, Charleville-Mezières, FR.
2024 - "April's Abstract Explosion", Ideelart Gallery, London, UK.
2023 - "En Vogue Now", online Artland, IdeelArt Gallery, London, UK.
2023 - "Intimate/Synergy", MOTOCO, Mulhouse, FR.
2023 - "Mostly Looking For The Same Things", XIV LAB, London, UK.
2023 - "Remain", The Performing Arts Forum, Saint-Erme-Outre-et-Ramecourt, FR.
2022 - "Hello there, I just wanted to ask how you're doing", PILAR Brussels, Brussels, BE.
2022 - "Carte De Visite / Art Open Kunst", Espace Vanderborght, Brussels, BE
2021 - "In The Circle Of Light", See U Brussels, Brussels, BE.
2021 - "A Question Of Lines And Evolution", The Sun-Day Room, Brussels, BE.
2020 - "Rain! And So On", See U Brussels, Brussels, BE.
Artist Statement
I work primarily with painting and text-based art to explore the unseen: the connections and separations between the literal and the metaphorical within emotional and sensorial experience.
I create gestural abstract paintings where movement, intuition, and materiality converge, building layered, textured surfaces that preserve traces of my physical engagement with the canvas. I use colour intuitively, guided by an organic sense of composition. I pour myself into the canvas and seek transformation, resolving what arises in the moment. Reason and control are deliberately set aside, allowing spontaneity to open access to instinctive and essential truths.
Text is central to my practice. Words emerge and dissolve on canvases, walls, and objects, treated as both visual and conceptual elements. I play with their sound and reflect on unconscious themes such as belonging, presence, and the complexities of communication and relationships.
Nature is also part of my artistic practice. Time spent in the Sonian Forest in Brussels and along the Belgian coast provides a direct connection to natural rhythms and processes—a state where my nervous system is at ease and creation can unfold freely. I carry these states into the studio as I work on my canvases. This bond with nature is shaped by my heritage in the modern art of Barcelona and Catalan modernism, growing up surrounded by Miró’s works and Gaudí’s architecture, alongside the coastal landscape that framed my early experiences.
My process resonates with the concept of “authentic movement” from Gestalt therapy, allowing painting to digest and translate sensorial and emotional experiences. It also provides a way to confront and transform ancestral pain rooted in the oppressive, crippling, and patriarchal leadership of Franco’s forty-year dictatorship. This history established patterns of inequality and patriarchal behaviour that I became aware of from an early age—not only within immediate circles of support, but also in broader social and relational contexts. I observed the consequences of unhealthy relationships and the lasting damage they have on broader society.
Painting comes first because it is visceral; in its immediacy lies a truth. From there, I expand into text, three-dimensional works, and, more recently, video, adding layers of sensorial experience that extend and echo the gestures of the painting. This approach creates a more holistic practice, exploring what a “Gesamtkunstwerk” can mean today.
My language seeks to escape belief systems and aspire to universality—gesture, energy, colour, shape, and composition—as metaphors through which I explore freedom, gender equality, and the deconstruction of power and authority, creating space for questioning. I aim to transform expired values into harmony, peace, and respect, guided by empathy, kindness, and compassion as essential forces for transformation and connection. It also investigates the resonance between inner and outer worlds, where perception, emotion, and environment intertwine, guided by the concept of Einfühlung, or empathetic attunement to experience.
At the core of my practice lies the question of freedom: not as an abstract idea, but as something embodied, unfolding naturally through the act of painting.
Laura Basterra Sanz, September 2025
For any enquires please e-mail me: laura.basterra.sanz at gmail.com
Follow my studio life and more on INSTAGRAM: @kung.fu.mistress