Elena Mir
Visual artist · Valencia, 1981
Elena Mir is a Spanish visual artist. She holds a PhD in Fine Arts and degrees from the Universitat Politècnica de València and the Winchester School of Art (UK). She teaches in the Department of Drawing at the Faculty of Fine Arts, UPV, and is a researcher with the Laboratorio de Creaciones Intermedia (LCI).
She keeps several distinct lines of work active: cut paper, illustration, video art, photography and installation. They are not successive phases, nor variants of one main technique — each has its own development, its own circuit and its own audience. She has shown paper works in galleries and at international fairs, published illustration with publishers and through an agency, presented video art in a solo show, and developed multimedia installation within her university research.
Since 2024 her projects have turned towards social and ecological concerns: Western Sahara, Gaza, inclusion, the environment. That dimension is not new — it was already present in her contribution to the Women, Art and Technology conference in 2010 — but it is what her most recent output concentrates on.
In her work with paper she combines very different traditions: cutting, perforation, fusion and the forming of the sheet itself. Since 2009 she has been developing Geometrical Spaces, a series built with the stratastencil technique: between thirty and a hundred layers of cut paper which, superimposed, generate depth, cast shadow and an image that shifts with the angle it is seen from. To papercutting she adds pin pricking, where the image is not drawn but perforated; joomchi, the Korean technique of fusing hanji paper through water and friction, which seeks irregular edges and transparencies; and pulp painting, which intervenes while the sheet is being formed, integrating colour and image into the fibre.
As an illustrator she has worked independently since 2010 for publishers, agencies, brands and private commissions. She is represented by the agency June Illustration and produces limited-edition prints.
Her academic research runs alongside her studio practice: it addresses multimedia installation and the nature of the projection surface. What happens when the screen stops being a surface and becomes an inhabitable space; how text expands and turns into a narrative vehicle within the installation. It is a single question sustained since 2010. A second line, developed as a team, approaches artificial intelligence on three fronts: assisted creativity, its educational use as a tool of empowerment, and the protection of artistic work against mimetic plagiarism on these platforms.
She has exhibited in Spain, Italy, Kenya and Mexico. In 2026 she takes part in Heterotomías intermedia, a group show curated by the Laboratorio de Creaciones Intermedia. She lives and works in Valencia.
Solo exhibitions
- 2024 Radiografías de lo antinatural (illustration). Iberflora, Valencia Trade Fair
- 2024 Sobre 20 cm. (video art). Iberflora, Valencia Trade Fair
- 2013 Geometrical Spaces. Galería Mr. Pink, Valencia
- 2012 Organic and Geometric. La Bagatela, Valencia
- 2011 PaperCut Space. Valencia Design Week
Group exhibitions
- 2026 Heterotomías intermedia. Sala de Exposiciones Junta Municipal de Ciutat Vella, Valencia. Curated by LCI
- 2026 Museo de Arqueología e Historia El Chamizal, México
- 2026 Centro Cultural de las Fronteras, México
- 2025 Cara al público. 101 años de RadioArte en España. SGAE, Valencia
- 2025 Oh! my earth. Imani House School of Arts and Social Sciences, Tangaza University, Nairobi
- 2025 Arte para la inclusión. Centro de Arte San Luis Contemporáneo
- 2025 Sáhara Libre. Pub El Volander
- 2024 Arena en los zapatos. Saharauis, la luz del desierto. Ca Revolta, Valencia
- 2024 Quan Gaza Clama. Valencia Book Fair
- 2015 MARTE, International Contemporary Art Fair. Castellón
- 2015 Incubarte 7, International Art Festival. Valencia
- 2014 DOMANISES. Sentaet Custom Tour. Galería Mr. Pink, Valencia
- 2013 Only Paper. Espai Rambleta, Valencia
- 2013 Dress Your Wall. Miscelänea, Barcelona
- 2012 Paper Showroom. Azkuna Zentroa – Alhóndiga, Bilbao
- 2012 Amparo. Revisiones del Hogar. Valencia Design Week, ADCV
- 2012 Room Art Fair, Hotel Praktik Metropol, Madrid
- 2004 Bestiari. 8 projectes per habitar la Llotgeta. Espai d'Art La Llotgeta, Valencia
- 2004 Interferencias. Sala d'Exposicions El Micalet, Valencia
- 2003 Individuo-poder. Sala Josep Renau, Facultat de Belles Arts UPV
- 2003 Ver visiones. Jornadas de proyección audiovisual. Espai d'Art La Llotgeta, Valencia
- 2001 Movida X la Manica. Accademia Albertina di Belle Arti, Turín
Awards
- 2015 Incubarte Special Prize. International Art Festival, Valencia
Murals and events
- 2019 ADGTalk. Feed your creativity & Spring Papers
- 2015 MBC Fest. Wild beasts (mural)
- 2015 Showroom Fedrigoni Club. Paper work commissioned by the brand
- 2014 Novartis (live painting)
- 2013 Asalto, International Urban Art Festival. Real Fábrica de Tapices, Madrid
- 2012 Blanc Festival. La novia del Blanc
Talks and public engagement
- 2013 PechaKucha Night Vol. 15. Colegio del Arte Mayor de la Seda, Valencia. Speaker
- 2012 Congreso TEDx Valencia. Edificio Nexus UPV. Illustration of conference materials
Publications
Books
- 2021 Viaje a través de la moda. Diseñadores, iconos y estilos de los siglos XX y XXI (con Vicente Gallart). Alba Editorial. ISBN 978-84-9065-821-5
- 2016 Preferiblemente vivas. Ediciones Hidroavión. Illustration. ISBN 978-84-944144-0-8
- 2019 Reinas de la ilustración del siglo XXI. Norma Editorial. Collective volume
- 2013 Ilustradores españoles. Collective volume
Peer-reviewed journal articles
- 2026 Making the Invisible Visible: Generative Multimedia Installation as a Device of Revelation. AusArt, 14 (2), 239-257. doi:10.1387/ausart.28460
- 2024 La palabra etérea. El texto expandido como vehículo narrativo en la instalación multimedia. Revista Sonda, Extra 13, 111-125
- 2023 El cambio de paradigma de la Inteligencia Artificial. Hacia una creatividad asistida. EME, 11, 64-75. doi:10.4995/eme.2023.19249
- 2021 Un soporte habitable. Cuando la pantalla de proyección se convierte en un espacio real. Tercio Creciente, V, 225-238. doi:10.17561/rtc.extra5.5809
Book chapter
- 2024 La inteligencia artificial como herramienta educativa: un medio de empoderamiento para mujeres y niñas en entornos marginales y subdesarrollados (con A. Fernández Navarro). En Educación 360, 193-215. Dykinson. ISBN 978-84-1070-059-8
Conference papers
- 2025 Propuesta docente para integrar el diseño regenerativo en la educación universitaria (con M. V. Martín-Gallego). VI Congreso Internacional NODOS del Conocimiento
- 2024 Herramientas de protección para obras artísticas ante el plagio por mimetismo en plataformas de Inteligencia Artificial (con A. Fernández Navarro y S. Alcaraz-González). CIVAE 2024, 47-49
- 2024 La Inteligencia Artificial como herramienta educativa (con A. Fernández Navarro). FUTUREDUCA 2024
- 2024 Encontrar la voz artística mediante la experimentación con pintura acrílica (con S. Alcaraz-González y A. Fernández Navarro). CIVAE 2024, 222-224
- 2024 La comunicación gráfica como herramienta de denuncia y transformación ante un vacío historiográfico (con A. Fernández Navarro y S. Alcaraz-González). CIVAE 2024, 294-296
- 2023 La palabra etérea. El uso de la tipografía como vehículo narrativo en la instalación multimedia. VII Simposio Internacional de la Tipografía al Libro-Arte
- 2020 Un soporte habitable. Cuando la pantalla de proyección se convierte en un espacio real. CIVARTES 2020
- 2017 La piel de la luz. Un camino a la inmaterialidad de los soportes de proyección. ANIAV 2017, 448-460. Editorial UPV
- 2010 Encuentros: luz, sonido y mujer. CIMUAT 2010, UPV
Doctoral supervision
- 2020 Pablo Ángel Lugo Martínez, Hacia una teoría libertaria del arte. Co-supervised with Elena Monleón Pradas. UPV. Distinction cum laude
Press
- Inspiration Grid (EN) — Geometrical Spaces
- AA13 (FR) — Geometry Papercut
- Fubiz (FR) — Papercut Artworks
- Gràffica (ES) — El espacio construido capa a capa
- DissenyCV (ES) — Dibujar con papel
- Paper Art Gallery — International directory