Patricia Sandonis Spanish/German, b. 1984

Patricia Sandonis’ multidisciplinary practice draws from socio-political contexts, personal biography, and collective cultural memory. Her drawings, objects, and installations reposition and question societal and political norms and the way culture is memorialized. Her work often contains visual references to structures and objects that shape public space, such as stone columns, temporary fences, or graffiti.

Europe is the backdrop for many of Sandonis’ works, questioning contemporary issues such as the meaning of bureaucracy, bureaucracy as control over migratory movements, or the selective representation of public monuments. The series “Fortuna Populi” employs numerology and the sites of Spanish embassies across Europe, creating a visual code of geometric shapes. These shapes become the blueprints for lucky charms, intended to bring fortune via a restored sense of community to an individualistic post-financial crisis Spain. Sandonis’ work can be seen as an alternative vision for imagining a collective consciousness, written in her own language of remembering.

Sandonis was born in Valladolid, Spain, and lives and works in Berlin. She has shown in numerous solo, and group shows across Europe and is the recipient of various grants and artist residencies. Her work is housed in several Spanish public collections.