Elisa Pardo Puch

Umbrales (Thresholds) is a multidisciplinary project that integrates audiovisual material, textiles, and drawing. The project revolves around an accumulative and repetitive process, conceiving artistic practice as a somatic channel that connects geometry, intuition, and space.

The research is spun from the almazuela or patchwork technique, a method of needlework based on the repurposing of old pieces of fabric that has historically produced both functional and decorative surfaces. The origin of the word is musalla: a place of prayer in Arabic.

The artist approaches this practice through appropriation and excess, conceiving the textile as a hybrid body far removed from its associated warmth: hers is an uncomfortable and soft textile that does not quite fit, as described by Julia Bryan-Wilson in Queer Textile Crittercism. The spiral seen in the almazuela design is activated as a form linked to an immersion in other states and realities, functioning as a channel between worlds and temporalities.

Biography

Elisa Pardo Puch (Madrid, 1988) graduated in Fine Arts from the Complutense University of Madrid and holds a master's degree in Contemporary Art History and Visual Culture (UCM, UAM and MNCARS). She also completed her training in Graphic design at Escuela de Arte 10. She has exhibited at ARCO, the Pradiauto Gallery(Madrid), Massimo Dutti (Barcelona), Fabra i Coats (Barcelona), the Young Art Gallery (Madrid), and Luis Adelantado (Valencia). Among her accolades, she has received the Visual Arts Grants from the Community of Madrid and has been selected for the BMW Painting Prize, VEGAP, and Circuitos. She has completed residencies at GlogauAIR (Berlin) and AIR Munich. She has taught courses at Proyecto Escuela (Madrid), the Faculty of Fine Arts at UCM, and the Pompidou Centre (Malaga).

Elisa Pardo Puch is a recipient of the 2026 six-month residencies for visual artists.