SIGN, STONE, AND TIME: A CONTEMPORARY EXHIBITION IN CANTABRIA
Cave Art Centre of Cantabria 'Alberto I de Monaco' in Puente Viesgo is hosting its first-ever contemporary art exhibition.
In this setting—where nature and human history converge—María Villacorta (Arce, Cantabria, 1991) presents Tiempo y profundidad (Time and Depth), an exhibition that invites viewers into a synchrony between past and present. Using mainly recycled iron—a recurring material in her practice—and various types of paper, Villacorta incorporates time itself as another material at play.
These seemingly contrasting elements merge into a resilient “skin” that, depending on light, distance, and perspective, reveals layers, textures, and subtle shifts. The resulting shapes, born of both chance and control, recall the essential forms of prehistoric art: the sign.
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María Villacorta: Tiempo y profundidad, en El Centro de Arte Rupestre de Cantabria. © Miguel de Arriba
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María Villacorta: Tiempo y profundidad, en El Centro de Arte Rupestre de Cantabria. © Miguel de Arriba
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María Villacorta: Tiempo y profundidad, en El Centro de Arte Rupestre de Cantabria
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María Villacorta: Tiempo y profundidad, en El Centro de Arte Rupestre de Cantabria
Alongside her works on paper, the Cantabrian artist also presents a series of sculptures made from recycled metal. Their surface treatment gives them a stony texture, evoking the rocky walls of ancient caves—timeless witnesses and connectors between us and our earliest ancestors.
These works take us back to the origins of art over 50,000 years ago, to the ancestral gesture of the first human interventions on cave surfaces. It is a kind of “archaeology of consciousness”—a connection between language, nature, humanity, and time. They evoke the sensations our ancestors may have felt when selecting a cave wall to paint a sign, trace an animal, or imprint a hand. Something deep within our DNA seems to resonate with these gestures, awakening a mysterious and intuitive affinity.
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María Villacorta (Arce, Cantabria, 1991)
According to the artist, “The exhibition explores both a lithic and an anthropological landscape: the stone as protector, refuge, fortress, and witness to wars and erosion. It addresses the formation and transformation of the great rock—guardian of time—that transcends all human scale. These works arise from contemplating the landscape, from its erosion by sculptural hands. They inhabit the wild terrain between creation and the destruction of civilizations that have settled on it without impunity.”
María Villacorta holds a degree in Fine Arts from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and the Accademia di Brera in Milan. She received a university scholarship from the Botín Foundation. Her solo exhibitions include gotasaladas at CACFM, Medium at Los Arenales, and SeaLevel in Comillas. Together with artist and architect JL Zúñiga, she runs an intergenerational, multidisciplinary studio engaged in installation, architecture, design, and socially-driven projects. Their collaborations have been featured in national and international residencies and exhibitions, including Caminantes, which travelled from Spain and Italy to Colombia as part of the Bienal Sur with the Pilar Brahim Foundation, and Espacio Deriva, presented at COP26 and the University of Ljubljana.
The exhibition was curated by fellow Cantabrian Míriam Callejo and organized in collaboration with the Department of Culture, Tourism and Sport of the Government of Cantabria.
Tiempo y profundidad remains on view until 30 November at the Cantabrian Centre for Rock Art ‘Albert I of Monaco’, Diseminado Puente Viesgo, 26, Puente Viesgo, Cantabria, Spain.
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