Through her practice, she engages with the dualities that define human life: the inside and the outside, sickness and health, metamorphosis and stasis, the visible and the invisible. Her photographs often present her own body adorned or encased in sculptural forms, merging flesh and material into a hybrid that speaks to both continuity and rupture. This layering of physicality and metaphor creates an evocative tension, allowing her to challenge traditional cultural notions of beauty and perfection while highlighting the politics of bodily representation. In doing so, Tendero liberates the body from ideals of wholeness and control, showing instead its natural state of fragility, change, and inheritance.

Her artistic research is not only autobiographical but also universal, exploring how the legacies of past generations shape the present and exert influence over the future. In her work, illness is not merely a condition, but a means of understanding the intricate interplay between memory, temporality, and identity. By addressing the transmutation of the body—its cycles of pain, loss, and renewal—she highlights how vulnerability can become a site of resilience and creativity.

Tendero studied Fine Arts at the Complutense University of Madrid before completing her MA in Photography at the London College of Communication. Her talent and originality have been recognised through prestigious residencies, including Sarabande – The Alexander McQueen Foundation (London, 2020), KulturKontak AIR (Austrian Federal Chancellery, Vienna, 2018), and Free Space Project (London). In 2024, she was the recipient of the 70:15:40 Project UK award, which celebrates innovative contemporary practices.

Her work has been widely exhibited in the UK and internationally, with highlights including Galleria Cavour in Padua, Italy (2019), Arnolfini Arts Centre in Bristol (2021), Messums Gallery (2022), the Centre for British Photography in London (2023), and multiple presentations at PhotoLondon between 2023 and 2025. Most recently, she has shown at University College London Hospital, furthering her commitment to engaging with spaces where art and health intersect.

Beyond her exhibitions and residencies, Tendero is also dedicated to supporting other artists through her role as a facilitator with the Arts & Health Hub, where she leads peer support groups for creatives working at the intersection of art, health, and wellbeing. This role reflects her commitment to community, collaboration, and the sharing of lived experiences, values that also underpin her own practice. Through her work, Paloma Tendero invites audiences to confront the complexities of the human body and condition, not as something to be hidden or idealised, but as a powerful source of truth, connection, and transformation.