Sculptor and visual artist · 1928-2016
Sculptor and visual artist
María Belén Morales Gómez was a sculptor and visual artist born in Santa Cruz de Tenerife in 1928 and deceased in 2016. Her work explored sculpture, drawing, collage, mural painting and jewellery through sustained research into materials and forms.
María Belén Morales trained first in Enrique Cejas Zaldívar's workshop and continued her studies at the School of Arts and Crafts and the Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. The Government of the Canary Islands' Artistas canarias guide documents these stages and places her first solo exhibition in Tacoronte in 1958.
From 1959 she investigated techniques and materials beyond those learned in academic training. She worked with forging, welding, riveting, casting, assemblage, metal and wood. This development was decisive for a practice that moved from figuration towards formal simplification and abstraction, while retaining an interest in matter and volume.
In 1963 she took part in founding Nuestro Arte, a group that fostered artistic renewal in the Canary Islands. Her activity also included cultural mediation and informal teaching. In 2011 the Government of the Canary Islands devoted volume 48 of Biblioteca de Artistas Canarios to her work; after her death, the CAAM organised a tribute exhibition and the University of La Laguna established the María Belén Morales National Sculpture Prize in 2019.
