User:Victor M. Vicente Selvas/Carmen Selves

Carmen Selves (born Maria Carmen Selvas Baltierrez on January 4, 1931 in Manresa) is a contemporary catalan painter.

Biography
Carmen Selves is born in Manresa.

Specialized in portrait and oil painting, being pianist, she enter the Reial Acadèmia Catalana de Belles Arts de Sant Jordi in Barcelona 1952, where she obtains her diplom in 1955. Her first oil paintings was done when she was 9 years old, no doubt she was influenced by her mother who possessed artistic gifts. Daughter of Joan Selvas i Carner and Carmen Baltierrez i Clotet, she lived the post-war period at the start of her career, being completely outside any political orientation but suffering from the consequences of the situation. When she was only 14 years old, she painted a rural landscape of Castelltallat range; she received a special mention in a painting competition of the parish of Sant Josep de Manresa and was recognized as a talented painter by the critic Ferran Hurtado Sanchis. This pushes her to study painting not only in Manresa, being an active painter of the Artistic Circle of Manresa, but also in Barcelona.

At the School of Sant Jordi, she had as teachers renowned painters such as Francisco Ribera Gómez, Josep Puigdengolas Barella or Ernest Santasusagna i Santacreu. But the greatest influence, leaving aside the classics which she knows very well, she received from her tutor after the completion of her studies, that of Evarist Basiana i Arbiell and his unique theory of the color that is applied in some of the jungle paintings. Much later, in 1992, for her personal interest and also to meet the academic requirements of the baccalaureate, she wrote a dissertation on the painter Lluïsa Vidal.

In 1979, she obtained a diploma in archeology at the University of Barcelona. She also worked at Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya.

Private life
Married to Josep Maria Vicente Esforzado, she had 4 children and many obligations which made her presence in the world of exhibitions, between 1957 and 1994 approximately, more rare.

Evolution of works style
First a portrait painter, in her first stage, she has a style halfway between expressionism figurative and impressionism. Then her portrait and her vision are more symbolists and she always uses other techniques besides oil painting: murals, ceramics, acrylics and others. She participates graphically and in other forms (scripts, voice, directing, production, etc.) in the creation of computerized animations in an unusual style and even does a video game whenever the themes provide a message. clearly positive. She also practices the themes of landscapes, marine and rural or simply floral and animal, uses urban themes and still life. She illustrates interactive children's books of which she herself publishes limited editions.

Exhibitions
As it can be readen in her CV, she has exhibited in Finland, Spain, France, Italia, Japan, New York among others.
 * 2015 : Museum Gustavo de Maeztu of Estrella
 * 2018 : Galeria ESART