LEILA FORÉS SELECTED AND PUBLISHED IN OUR PRINT EDITION 09
The project “Between backstage” starts in 2015 when the Ballet school I attended in my childhood gives me a pass to be able to mix among its students in the previous moments before the grand exhibition.
A single function, to which I have the privilege of attending every two years. It is an open project, which will continue an upcoming appointment in 2021. I am attracted to the dancers’ representation which they are preparing for, or they have just finished. It is usually intuition that guides me more than detailed planning of my expectations. Above all, I am interested in capturing emotions and hidden feelings barely suggested or even perceived. Apply a look recreating that world lived without reflection, without too much awareness of what is happening, because the vital energy of those moments is concentrated on what will happen or what has just happened. Anxiety, shared responsibility, even stage fright, but also the satisfaction perplexity. And above all, the reflection of an inner world makes them live in solitude as if a wall not perceived isolate them from each other. The dancers share the stage without perhaps sharing a vital reality. How these feelings and emotions work is what has made me return every time to the subject, perhaps because it is a beautiful reflection transmuted by the beauty of the situation, of life, and of human relationships.
About Leila Forés
Leila Forés was born in Benicarló, on the Spain east coast in 1972. A school workshop made her discover the magic of the darkroom and made her decide pursuing Higher Studies on Image and Photography in Valencia. After her studies, she fails to live on photography, and that produces a rejection towards it lasting 15 years, in which she is dedicated to the fashion trade. Now, she continues combining both activities. In 2012 she ignores digital photography, and her curiosity leads her to retake it, training online and self-teaching. It is there when she discovers a new expression line and develops a personal style with some intimate and reflective themes, working them in digital and giving them form so that they are visually confused with the film. Her higher volume work she develops it through her image to express feelings surrounding her day-to-day. The diagnosis of her father’s illness was a turning point, and photography helped her take refuge in a parallel and creative world to free her fears and anguishes. The exclusive use of B&W, the blur, the movement, accentuate the emotional look and the essence in compositions and play of lights. Since 2013, when she began to spread it, her work has been awarded internationally on numerous occasions. So that she receives the Gold Medal at the Daguerre Hall in Paris (2015). She won the 9th Pollux Awards (2017), Bronze Medal in Fine Art Portfolio TIFA (2017), she was the winner of Fine Art series at Monovisions Awards (2018). She has participated in collective exhibitions in galleries and art fairs in Berlin, Barcelona, Madrid and Tokyo.
