Sandra Torralba
Artist, Photography
Madrid, Spain

Born in Madrid, 1979

«I always wanted to be a writer, actress, photographer and acrobat. But in adolescence I became anxious to understand the world and I became very studious. My universe revolved around trauma, mental health, gender issues, sexuality and corporality This is how before dedicating myself professionally and artistically to photography I was a psychotherapist and social worker in acute mental health and crisis states as well as domestic violence and sexual abuse. Although it has been many years since I have exercised everything that I learned and experienced. part of me and my work.

In 2008 I started my artistic career. I studied a Master in artistic photography followed by a course in Cinematography applied to photography and I began to combine my personal artistic project of audiovisual creation (exhibiting at fairs, galleries and national and international festivals) with professional photography, especially portraiture. editorial (for national media) and artistic sports and erotic photography.

I consider that my work is based on three fundamental pillars: the concept that is the fundamental axis for which the other two work, an impeccable technique (lighting and photography) and digital publishing. Without a concept, I feel that photography is an empty aesthetic exercise, but I believe with the same intensity that one should aspire to be the best technician that one can become, and for that, never stop training and taking risks.

There are several words that could define my work well: self-portrait, staged photography, eroticism, humor, sexuality, cinematography, nude, lighting.

They all represent aspects of what I do and are important to me. I like to create scenes that tell a story, an instant suspended in time, with a past and a future that we do not see, but with all the clues to recompose the story and from there establish a communication with the observer, who projects their ghosts and fill in the gaps. I like to raise fundamental questions about sex, corporality and gender from humor.
Because I understand humor not as a way to «remove iron» or minimize the concept, but as an exercise in conceptualization and intelligence; a way of saying the same without trying to destroy the other. I greatly enjoy the challenge of lighting my images, letting the lighting build the entire scene almost by itself, and always trying to use different formulas. «