Ana Montiel (b. 1981, Logroño, Spain) explores the relationship between consciousness, perception, and processes of inner transformation. For her first exhibition at Parra & Romero, Coherence Diagrams, the artist presented a series of new paintings that reinterpret the changes that occur in our brains when we pay deliberate and sustained attention. These neural changes and reconfigurations are directly related to perception, so the artist invites us to exercise our attention and recognize perception as a practice in which transforming our gaze can transform the world we perceive.
The paintings are presented as open diagrams—maps of ongoing transformations crisscrossed by cuts, shifts, and evolutions that mark the moments of transition between one reading of reality and the next. They function as a field of inquiry where forms and rhythms do not merely illustrate concepts but embody them, making our processes of change visible.
Coherence Diagrams is part of Topologies of Existence (TOE), an umbrella project whose acronym is a deliberate nod to the Theory of Everything—that elusive master key that physics seeks but has yet to find, and around whose possibility all branches of the project orbit.
Ana Montiel draws inspiration from a variety of sources, including quantum biology, Jungian psychology, Taoist philosophy, the alchemical tradition, and Stoic thought. These disciplines converge on the same intuition: that the observer and the observed are inseparable, and that transforming one’s gaze transforms the world that gaze constructs.
Her work has been exhibited at international museums and galleries such as Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich (2024–25), Fundación Medianoche, Granada (2024–25), Lago/Algo, Mexico City (2024), Casa Pentra, Los Angeles (2024), OMR Gallery, Mexico City (2022), Nest, The Hague, Netherlands (2022), UCCA Dune Museum, Beidaihe, China (2020); Aparador Cuchilla, Mexico City (2020), Peana Off-Site, Gardiner, NY (2019), Sala Amós Salvador, Logroño (2018); and has participated in art fairs such as Art Basel (Basel and Miami Beach), Frieze London, The Armory Show (NY), and NADA Miami, among others.
