Elena Garrigolas’s work is an invitation to slow looking—to enter a visual world shaped by memory, introspection, and symbolic transformation. Rooted in the act of drawing, her practice explores how early belief systems and personal experiences shape our understanding of the body, emotion, and selfhood. Raised in a tradition-bound environment, Garrigolas returns to this terrain not to retell, but to reimagine—transforming personal recollection into poetic narratives that resonate beyond the individual.
Her drawings—often large in scale yet intimate in detail—feature dreamlike figures that blend human and fantastical forms. These characters seem suspended between states, their gestures quiet but deliberate, their surroundings infused with both tenderness and tension. In this world, the feminine form becomes a site of both vulnerability and strength. Symbolism plays a central role: cloaked bodies, hybrid creatures, and recurring motifs speak of hidden systems of control, internal conflict, and the quiet power of reflection.
Rather than confront or critique directly, Garrigolas works through metaphor and allegory. She approaches the past not as a burden, but as a landscape to be redrawn. Her art is not only personal—it is spiritual, emotional, and deeply humane. Through drawing, she offers viewers a space to contemplate the complexity of identity and the quiet transformations that shape who we become.