Carla+Marta Cascales Alimbau are two sisters from Barcelona exploring the connection between physical and sound space and how they interact with our senses.
Marta Cascales Alimbau is a pianist and composer with a Classical Music background but a modern flair, her music is delicate, subtle and atmospheric. Marta works creating new music for piano, performing live and composing for other Art Forms.
Carla Cascales Alimbau is an independent artist. Her work is based on reaching the essence, finding beauty in imperfection and profundity in earthiness, of revering authenticity above all. carlacascales.com
Art Residences
TOKYO (Japan)
Almost Perfect, Summer 2019.
FLORENCE (Italy).
Numeroventi, September 2018.
SAN FRANCISCO (California).
Var Program, Summer 2017.
Exhibitions
Le Temps, Galería Senda (Barcelona 2020).
Sisters. OX Gallery (Barcelona) 2019.
Talks
The Creative Fest (Barcelona) 2019.
Le temps exhibition, Galería Senda (Barcelona, 2020)
The change in the conception of time experienced during the months of confinement has given rise to Carla Cascales Alimbau's reflection on the constant self-imposed rush in our society.
The artist recreates a feeling of stopped time, where the absence of color makes all the pieces merge with each other. It is in these instances that what usually goes unnoticed, such as textures, shadows, cracks and subtle movements, take importance.
Diving underwater is one of those moments where time slows down, where there is no room for rush. The series of mobile sculptures, “Posidonias”, is a tribute to that bubble of silence, to the ductile movement of algae, pieces rocked by their own inertia, without exerting resistance, since for the artist the stopped time is not the absence of movement but calm.
The exhibition was accompanied by piano and atmospheric sounds that recreates with music the sensations of the art pieces, inviting the visitor to get immersed in Carla’s sculptures.
Almot Perfect Tokyo (Japan, 2019)
Our intervention in Japan was an ephemeral mobile sculpture spired by the Japanese ikebana technique. The sculpture was composed of fresh natural flowers that evolved every day until their total degradation.
The performance consisted of a Live piano performance inspired by the movement of the flowers during the day with a projection of color gradients, extracted from the colors of the flowers and randomly combined. We wanted to create a sensorial experience where what it really matters is giving value to the art of contemplation.
Sisters exhibition, OX Gallery (Barcelona, 2019)
The Mobile Sculpture TEZ is a homage to movement. Movement understood as life. "If you want something to die, leave it still" (J. Drexler).
The shapes of the mobiles, inspired by the feminine figure, are curves of flexible wood. Light but strong.
They are accompanied by paintings that reflect the essence of the body, with intercalated silhouettes of an almost abstract form, and thus capturing their movement.
The music that surrounds the mobiles represent movement through sound: it starts with calmness, it speeds up and gets more dynamic, it calms down only to gain momentum again and finally return to serenity. Always with a rhythmic motion that never stops. The piano piece is inspired by the Adagio Organ Sonata n. 4 by J.S Bach.
Numeroventi Residency (Florence, 2018)
Project inspired by Il ratto di Polissena Sculpture. A reinterpretation of this sculpture through music and visuals.
The music piece is based on the idea of weight and lightness, as the sculpture, that it seems so light and in movement, but it’s actually super heavy.
The visuals are sketches of the bodies, just taking the minimum lines; Textures made with latex, reminding a skin texture; And two mobile sculptures, representing the two bodies enrolled together.
The work was presented at Numeroventi Open Day (September 22nd, 2018), as a concert-exhibition, where the mobile sculptures moved to the music.
Sculptures, Textures and Sketches: Carla Cascales Alimbau / Music: Marta Cascales Alimbau /Photo credit: Marina Denisova / Work supported by Numeroventi Residency
Varda Artists Residency (San Francisco, 2017)
In the summer of 2017 we had the honor of being part of the Varda Artists Residency in California, aboard the SS Vallejo houseboat. The challenge at the residency was to develop our first multidisciplinary project exploring the possibilities of combining Music and Sculpture.
This piano piece was inspired by the vibrant new experience of living on a houseboat; and with the purpose of giving a sonority dimension to the mobile sculptures that Carla was developing.
The first part of this piece represents the tide: the water slowly going up and then down; the swinging of the boat. Then comes the lighthouse: the sudden calm and peace of floating on the water, on a boat, where the rhythm of the day is marked by the light of the sun and the moon.
This acousmatic composition is a kind of collage of the sounds and noises produced while building the mobile sculptures. You can hear how the surrounding nature comes through the windows, how the materials sound while Carla manipulate them and even how a heavy piece suddenly falls to the ground.
Ultimately, this is a little piece to remember how the creative process is as beautiful and important as the 'final result'.
