Nadia Barkate
She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts, specializing in Audiovisuals (2010), and a Master’s degree in Research in Contemporary Art (2012). After completing a predoctoral fellowship at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), she obtained her PhD in 2021 in the Department of Drawing at the Faculty of Fine Arts, with the dissertation “Trial, Repetition, Obsession. 2010–2020.” She is currently a visual artist and Associate Professor in the Department of Painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the UPV/EHU.
Her work focuses on drawing and its inertias from a broad perspective that also branches into writing, sculpture, and installation. She addresses the circulation between technique and desire, as well as perceptions of lucidity, hallucination, identity, and interiority. A certain narrative impulse is strongly present in her practice, linking the everyday, the manual, and the written word.
Her work has been exhibited in numerous venues. She has participated internationally in spaces such as Casino Luxembourg (Luxembourg, 2025), CAT (Berlin, 2023), Espacio Vaga (São Miguel, Azores, 2022), Galleria Nappa and Studio Mustanapa (Rovaniemi, 2021), Lítost Gallery (Prague, 2020), Westfälischer Kunstverein (Münster, 2019), and Altes Finanzamt (Berlin, 2015). She has also shown her work in institutions such as Artium Museoa (solo exhibition, 2022), and in group exhibitions at the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum (2018 and 2020), Azkuna Zentroa (Bilbao, 2018), Centro Huarte (2016), Tabakalera (Donostia, 2018), Espai 01 (Olot, 2012), and Montehermoso (Vitoria-Gasteiz, 2010). She has held solo exhibitions at well-known galleries such as Carreras Mugica (2015) and Ethall (Barcelona, 2018), and has participated in group exhibitions at Marta Cervera (2023), Moisés Pérez de Albéniz (Madrid, 2020), and Bombón Projects (Barcelona, 2019). She is represented by Galería Fermay in Palma de Mallorca. Recently, she published a book of poems with Brillo Editorial titled Ghani, ghani (2025).
She has received national distinctions such as the Gure Artea Award for Creative Activity (2023) and one of the Cervezas Alhambra Awards (2022). Other notable regional recognitions include the Egile Visual Arts Award (2019), the Special Prize for Emerging Artists of Gipuzkoa (2016), APA Eremuak (2023), the Juan de Otaola y Pérez de Saracho Grant (2016), a two-month residency grant in Beijing offered by M.A Estudios in collaboration with the UPV/EHU and the Basque Government (2012), and the Montehermoso Grant for Art and Research (2009). Her work is part of collections such as the Shared Collection of the Basque Government (2022), the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum (2020), Artium Museum of Vitoria-Gasteiz (2021), the Candela Soldevilla Collection (2021), Cervezas Alhambra (2022), and the Hamaca Collection (2009).
She has led several experimental drawing workshops such as Atardecer, Zoom, Mano, Zoom, Ojo at Matadero de Azkoitia, at the UPV/EHU, and at Tabakalera (2016–2018), as well as “Cabeza-mano. El buen dibujo” within the Bisitariak sessions in Donostia (2014). These workshops consisted of a series of exercises based on pushing limits and learning to draw under suggestion, with the aim of freeing thought and intuition in order to recognize the medium.