Elena Rivera-Montanes (b.1998) is a British painter based in London. She received her BA(Honours) in Fine Art: Painting from Wimbledon College of Arts and has exhibited in multiple groupshows, most recentlyThe Painted Roomat GRIMM, Amsterdam, curated by Caroline Walker and Four-Foldsat Lychee One Gallery, London.
Primarily exploring themes of time, loss, and observations of life, Rivera-Montanes depicts interior and domestic spaces that are often familiar to her. Constructed through a nostalgic colour palette, she stitches together memories, overlooked moments and personal history to tell stories. Although many of the paintings are devoid of figures, the work in fact conveys friends and family who inhabited these spaces, remembered through belongings, objects and their sentimental value.
Evoking a familiarity most can respond to, the work floats between the past and present. With reference to photographs she has taken herself, or found in her family album, Rivera-Montanes collages these liminal spaces to form fragmented moments in time, which explore the ambivalence between the places and people she can remember and what has been forgotten. Through the process of painting these moments, she aims to mirror how we recall, blur and rewrite our memories.