(soon in english)

"Todavía itinerante por Latinoamérica, su exposición Manifiesto Surromántico, instalaciones y vídeos realizada en colaboración con Noni Lazaga, Belén Franco presenta en la muestra actual pinturas de pequeño y mediano formato, realizadas algunas de ellas en sus viajes americanos, y acompañadas por una instalación. Aunque el paisaje ha sido uno de sus temas favoritos, ha sabido siempre utilizarlo como pretexto para contar otras cosas, tanto desde un punto puramente plástico como conceptual. Así si la geología, el lento trabajo de la naturaleza, fue protagonista en su serie de cuadros de 2003, en Alfondo del jardín es la nieve y los contrastes de color que sobre ella se producen o las flores observadas en su naturalidad o en su versión filtrada, reproducida en telas estampadas, de las que ha partido para descubrirnos una sutil sensualidad, llena de ironía.

Se trata siempre de paisajes totalmente imaginados, poblados sin embargo de íntimas vivencias personales, que introducen un elemento de misterio en cada cuadro y que, aún sin conocer sus claves, el espectador percibe de inmediato."

M.E. "Arte y Parte". 2007

"Belén Franco shows the different cycles upon which she has worked in the two last years. The best, with no doubt, is that of the monumental self-portraits of 1999 with radical and nude with the face appearing in a forced foreground that turns into an abyssal landscape, and the suggestive series of homages to great European capital cities with the allegorical figures that conceal the scenic enigma of each of the cities."

Fernando Huici. "El País". 9/12/2000

"Deepening on the work of her previous exhibition at the Círculo de Bellas Artes, we find here works that part from symbols and myths to find the metaphore of ideas that justify personal behaviours of human being. The artist insists in this passions, both in the serial of Mythological hearts representing mythical heroes of ancient times who can be identified with different types of love (for others or for one-self) and, in a less obvious way, in the serie of cities watched from an aerial view and turned into archetypical landscapes of three european capital cities, inhabitated by different travestied natures of the same artist. Even if this proposals seem to be more flashing, I think that the step beyond of this exhibition can be found in the serie of "Beaches" and "Self-Portraits". The pictorial finish is less defined but more elaborated, less closed in itself and rhetoric as far as formulation is concerned, they show a small but deeper door deeper to the mistery of existence considering cues that may only be solved by poetry and art"

Abel H. Pozuelo. "El Cultural" of "El Mundo". 6/12/2000

"Belén Franco exhibits an ensemble of works that has been divided in different series untitled Self-Portraits, Beaches,
Cities and Mythological Hearts. This last serie shows the painters special interest in classical subjects. All her paintings emphasizes the care for details and a studied use of colour."

María Tapia. "Metrópoli" of "El Mundo". Diciembre 2000