Tere Recarens studied at the Escuela Massana de Barcelona (1983–1989), the École supérieure d’art in Grenoble (1991–1992) and the Marseille École supérieure d’art et de design (1993–1994). She lives and works in Berlin and Barcelona. Her interdisciplinary work embraces drawing, words, photography, video and installation, with a direct language that makes use of humour, irony and irreverence. A central concept in her work is travel, understood not only as a physical and geographical shift but also as an emotional and relational journey. In this sense, the raw material for her career path has come from her travels and consequent biography. Bamako, Barcelona, Paris, Berlin and Teheran have been the settings for her peregrination and work. She produces a kind of self-portrait based on her ability to read and adapt to her immediate surroundings and connect with other people. Sometimes she plays with the local tongue, at other times with elements of material culture such as textiles, always approaching the concepts of identity and belonging through that experience.

Much of her work is based on the idea that art can be a disruptive and critical experience that cannot be separated from life itself. In many of her pieces this premise is applied to her own experience, while in others it is the perception of art by others that is the object of deconstruction. An example of the latter is Terremoto [Earthquake], in the permanent collection of Barcelona MACBA. Made in 1994 and first shown in Marseille that year, and then two years later at the Capilla del Antiguo Hospital in Barcelona, it was reactivated in 2016 for the MACBA collection exhibition PUNK. Its Traces in Contemporary Art. This is one of her most significant works. The installation, like all of her work, is playful, carefree and surprising, even absurd, as it transgresses accepted norms.

Beyond the direct challenge to viewers, forcing them to situate themselves very concretely with regard to the artwork and its exhibition context, T. Recarens brings out the unstable character of the surrounding world. Likewise, she is very active in exposing and denouncing the oppression of women, particularly in Iran, with whose culture she has been closely connected. This can be seen the installation Baharestan Carpet presented at the MACBA in 2023, as part of the exhibition MACBA Collection: Prelude. Poetic Intention. A carpet painted on cardboard references Iranian history and legends. Visitors are asked to walk on it and thus join the community of a way of life evoked by these stories.

Since the 1990s she has shown her work continuously at galleries and venues such as the Arts Santa Mònica art centre in Barcelona (2004), the Malaga Centro de Arte Contemporáneo (2006), the FRAC Bourgogne in Dijon (2009) and the Art At Work space in Turin (2014).