Over the past four and a half decades, the Spanish artist Miquel Barceló (born 1957) has worked across a wide range of mediums, from paintings to works on paper, ceramics, and bronze sculptures to large-scale installations and performances. Despite his deep-rooted connection to Spain, Barceló draws inspiration from his time spent in varying locations, having worked in Barcelona, Portugal, Palermo, Paris, Geneva, New York, the Himalayas, and West Africa in addition to his native Mallorca. The varied terrain of his travels have influenced and shaped his work, with his art transforming as he experiences new environments around the world, from the arid deserts of Africa to the rocky landscape and underwater marine universe of the Balearic Islands. An artistic nomad, Barceló’s fascination with the natural world has inspired richly textured canvases that recall the earthly materiality of Catalan painters such as Antoni Tapies and Joan Miró, as well as compositions that study the effects of light and the ever-changing colors of the sea. Always experimenting with the materials of his art, Barceló has remained focused on the expressive qualities of his materials to explore texture, touch, and surface.

About Miquel Barceló

Miquel Barceló was born in Felanitx, Majorca in 1957 and currently lives and works in Mallorca, Spain, and Paris, France. The youngest artist to ever show at the Musée du Louvre, Barceló represented Spain at the 53rd Venice Biennale in 2009 and participated in Documenta VII in Kassel, Germany in 1982. He has had retrospectives at renowned institutions, including Centre Pompidou, Paris; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; Museo Rufino Tamayo, Mexico; the Guggenheim Bilbao, Spain; and is included in many esteemed public and private collections worldwide. Barceló has also has several solo exhibitions in recent years, including one featuring his ceramics at the Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche, Faenza in 2019, a solo exhibition titled Metamorfosis at the Museo Picasso, Málaga in 2021, and an exhibition at the Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, on view in early 2022.