In the Sitges ReciclArt 2020 collective exhibition, curated by Drap-Art, eighteen artists exhibit their creations from November 27 to December 20 in Sitges (Can Falç de Mar - Passeig de la Ribera, 12 in order to raise awareness about the the problem of plastic waste in the oceans and the impact of consumer habits on the environment in general.
Artists and Artworks
Jana Álvarez
Torrelavega (Cantabria), 1966.Jana Álvarez is a multidisciplinary artist capable of handling any challenge, she is at home in
the worlds of painting, fashion, illustration, assemblage, collage and artistic recycling, easily crossing the boundaries between disciplines. She graduated in Fine Arts and Fashion Design, is based in Barcelona and participates in Drap-Art from its beginning, in 1996.
She claims "manual power" in the face of technology. A constant issue in her work is the reflection on the ephemeral and absurd character of our society, also on the human being, as a devastating, indifferent and ethically dual element. For this purpose, she uses the female figure as a metaphorical archetype of the "universal individual" and as an atavistic representation of the creative and destructive force, composing her mestizo mythologies. All of it wrapped up and disguised in an apparently superficial and sometimes ironic, colorful pop aesthetic, in order to contrast "form and essence," trying to awaken awareness.
New Ophelia (2018)
55 x 60 cm
Assemblage suspended from a hanger. Oil pastel and acrylic on a synthetic raffia sack base, various paper and plastic scraps, synthetic raffia, food nets, “can holder” nets, bottle caps, etc.
Plastic Blue Drink (2020)
30 x 40 cm
Plastic fish sculpture made out of "can holders", surgical masks, food mesh, various plastics, CDs and broken glass.
Orson Buch
orsonbuch.com
(Paris, 1965). As the son of German artists living in Paris, Orson grew up between Paris and the island of Formentera, from 1970 to 1982. After that his family returned to live in Paris for him to finish his studies. After that he stayed on, although he still spends a lot of time in Spain between Formentera and la Pobla de Benifassar. His first personal exhibition was organised in New York in 1988. Since then he has exhibited in France, Germany and Spain.
Some years ago, inspired by a trip to Senegal, aside of his neorealistic paintings, he started to make sculptures from tin cans, representing animals with the minimum intervention of materials, respecting as much as possible of the original object.
Ladislas Chachignot
www.ladislas.eu
Paris, 1984. Ladislas is a French artist based in Barcelona. Specialized in «surrealistic, pop and ecological art». He works digitally and traditionally on canvas and paper, mixing various techniques to create complex and vivid artworks, that reflect his vision of the world. He is inspired by ecology, pop culture, contemporary art, graphic design and illustration, as well as the arts and crafts of ancient civilizations. In his work, Ladislas is confronting the human body and its place in the richness and diversity of nature. How we interact and are part of it and at the same time how we transform our world and distort it to fit to our pleasure and need. Through his images, he’s questioning our “place as humans in the world” and offers some moments of pause in the ultra-structured societies we’re living in, giving the spectator a visual space where he/she can dive into.
Iván Egea
Arbeca (Lleida), 1981. Iván Egea Pocurull was born in Arbeca on January 31, 1981. After completing secondary studies in Lleida, he settled in Barcelona to study for a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Barcelona, specializing in sculpture, finishing his degree in 2003. When he finished his studies he traveled to Italy to work as a sculptor in Pietrasanta next to the Carrara quarries for a season.
"All my life I have dedicated myself to storing and collecting objects, thinking that one day they could be used to do something."
Noni Font
www.nonifont.com
Barcelona, 1962. Noni Font graduated as an industrial designer from the Milan Polytechnic, where he developed his profession for a few years, until he returned to Barcelona, he created his own company. After 25 years of professional career, he feels the need to seek a new direction in his work, in sculpture. Here he unites his love of the sea and the practice of diving and orients the theme of his pieces towards fish and recycled materials, managing to give a particular caricaturized expression to his pieces, which at the same time reflect his concern for the destruction of nature and contribute to environmental awareness raising.
glove fish (2020)
60 x 40 cm
Painted wooden sculpture and other recycled materials.
bacallà (2019)
70 x 30 cm
Painted wooden sculpture and other recycled materials.
pez carpa (2019)
70 x 30 cm
Painted wooden sculpture and other recycled materials.
k-bra (2020)
150 x 50 x 20 cm
Painted wooden sculpture and other recycled materials.
Richard Keith Hoffman aka RichHARD
www.richardhoffman.co.uk
London, 1979. RichHARD is a Post Pop Urban Artist and, like him, his work is captivating and full of life. He principally works with iconic pop culture combining fine art with a fresh urban edge. He trained as a Fine artist at Central Saint Martins. RichHARD’s works are bold and chiefly revolve around emotion and people. Often provocative, he does not fear to challenge his viewers. Works can be playful in their aesthetic, but contain a deep attention to detail and subtly deal with issues. He believes in creating art to make the world a better place.
Ingravidesa Alliance
www.villadelarte.com
The Ingravidesa Sculpture Alliance is an international group of sculptors and designers who collaborate to create abstract sculpture with nature literally at its roots!
They work together for months on monumental projects based on collaborations where each artist is invited to assist in the creative process. Time is split between Asia, where discarded tree roots are sustainably sourced and prepared, and the studios in Catalonia and Holland where the recycled wood pieces are further worked on and sometimes layered with gold leaf and other precious metals.
Courtesy of Villa del Arte Galleries, Barcelona – Amsterdam.
Ollivier Jacq
www.reseacla.com
Landerneau, Francia, 1975. Ollivier is Breton, he came to Spain 25 years ago and is based in Sitges. He loves taking long walks on the beaches and coves of the Costa del Garraf. This is where his inspiration comes from. During those walks along the coast, he collects driftwood, rusted metals, parts of fishermen's nets and other debris from the sea.
“During the confinement I began to transform driftwood into unique pieces with nautical inspiration. Whales, lighthouses, boats or fishing villages are shaped out of the pieces of wood. Thus the RESEACLA project was born. Its name comes from the combination of the words RECICLA in Spanish, and SEA in English. Two topics that I attach great importance to: recycling and protecting the sea.”
Jordi Llort i Figuerola
www.llortfiguerola.com
Tarragona, 1977.
Visual Artist, with studies in Graphic Design, Illustration and Gardening, with a workshop in the old town of Tarragona. He also works in cultural management.
He has given workshops on Fine Arts and recycling for cultural associations, the Tarragona City Council, and schools, to highlight the Recycling and Characters Workshop at the MiniPop Festival of Tarragona, in 2012. Currently he is preparing three recycling workshops in Schools form Tarragona in the framework of "The artist goes to School". He has received many awards: Repsol YPF Ephemeral Art Award 2004, 2006, 2009, Carello Cycle Award 2009, Creative Territories Award for Emerging Art 2011, Irradiator Award 2012 from the Tarragona Art Center, Trans-missions Award from the Telar de Luz & Kunstainer Collective, 2014, Finalist of the 2019 Art Biennial of the Museum of Modern Art of Tarragona, Creation Award of the Tarragona County Council, 2019.
“It has been two years since I started to collect plastic from the Tarragona coast, and develop my work with this garbage. This summer, I am doing the work directly on the beaches, with the garbage that I collect on them. Specifically, I join it with eco relief paste, on top of a wooden suport and then I reinterpret the landscape, like Dystopian Marinas."
Cristina López Igea
Sitges, 1964. Cristina López is stylist and costume designer for theater, film and television. She studied Design and Dressmaking at the Feli Institute and has been creating costumes for the La Cubana theater company since 1992, with whose work Campanades de Boda, she won the Butaca Award for best costumes, in 2012. She has also worked on television (Telecena for TV1 and Me lo dijo Pérez for Tele5) and cinema (El amor daña seriamente la salud de Gómez Pereira). She also works for carnivals and other events. She has also been a tailor and store manager for clothing, organizing and preserving dresses, shoes and accessories. In addition, she teaches actors and actresses how to make a look for themselves (costumes and accessories for their characters). She has been “inventing dresses” for 30 years, imagining, developing ideas and making them come true. She is passionate about her work.
Laia Mauri
www.laiamauri.com
Lleida, 1979. Laia Mauri is a young Catalan designer with a family tradition, as already her grandmother was a tailor. She trained in Fine Arts and later as a designer and expert in performing arts: theater, dance, film and TV, in some of the most prestigious schools. Her work goes well beyond making a sketch and putting it on canvas. She has developed her own personal style, participating in numerous events and receiving significant mentions in the world of fashion and performing arts.
“I have created the Human Metamorphosis project to denounce the changes that have occurred since the end of 2019 and 2020 during the situation of the Covid confinement and the overcoming of a personal situation experienced by some people, which has become evident in this situation and which is Gender Violence."
Cuello Mariposa Transformación (2019)
21 x 45 cm
Hanging collar made by hand, embroidered piece by piece and constructed in a three-dimensional way, the real size of a giant butterfly. The materials used are 100% natural strong cotton fabrics, quality embroidery threads in colors, wool, satin neckband and special hard cardboard filling. First piece of the Human Metamorphosis project, which symbolizes the lived transformational change.
Cuello Mariposa Alegría (2020)
35 x 30 cm
Collar made by hand, piece by piece. It symbolizes the change of joy in our life, it is made in a three-dimensional way, the size of the natural butterfly. It is a unique piece. The materials used are 100% natural cotton fabric, quality embroidery threads in colors, yarn wool, marabou and for the hard cardboard filling. Second piece of the Human Metamorphosis project, which symbolizes the lived transformational change of the Joy of Living.
Cuello Mariposa Luz Pura (2020)
22,50 cm x 10,50 cm
Collar made with a very powerful light and pure energy. It is a small collar, all handcrafted, with materials such as heavy-duty 100% natural quality cotton, colored embroidery threads, embroidered ribbon in sequins and rhinestones and antique trimmings as a neck cord. Third piece belonging to the Human Metamorphosis project which symbolizes the Pure Light that transforms situations.
Miquel Oller Canet
www.kmaus.gallery
Palau-Sator (Girona), 1978. Miquel Oller Canet has worked as a freelance graphic designer and children's book illustrator. He is currently graduated in Audiovisuals and Multimedia from the UdG and studies Arts Applied to the Wall in Barcelona. He has created a documentary and some exhibitions of painting projects in Girona and Barcelona. He is part, of the Kmaus creation group, along with Klara Vallmajor, in which he has directed video dance projects.
"With the use of already discarded materials, I seek to find a way to create an art that breaks with the constant accumulation of waste, taking advantage of the materials and putting them to one more use."
Josep M. Pastó Miró
www.jmpasto.cat
Les Borges Blanques, 1964. He studied drawing and working with clay at a very young age, both in private academies and at the School of Applied Arts and Artistic Trades of Tàrrega.
Although he is professionally dedicated to telecommunications, he also works with wood, clay, and assemblage, driven by his need for artistic expression. This same curiosity is responsible for the fact that from a young age, he has dedicated himself to disassembling all kinds of objects to understand their functioning. He started with Interpretations, a series of sculptures created from the elements of a disassembled machine, reassembled with purely aesthetic criteria, keeping all the pieces intact and without excessive manipulation so that the alteration is minimal. He uses the original screws and springs to make the joints, without adding any other external element. He is currently focused on assembling recycled elements, such as butane bottles, golf clubs and paellas to build semi-realistic insect sculptures.
Lost (Sèrie Animals mutants) 2020
145 x 130 x 143 cm
An animal that has lost its distinctive character.
A sculpture built with nuts and bolts, without welding. The materials used are recycled elements such as butan gas and camping gas containers, paella pans, elements from lamps, computer chips and golf sticks.
Toni Riera Roma
www.artamoresitges.com
Lleida, 1974.
Toni Riera has always liked to decontextualize objects, play with them, reconvert their function, elevating them to the category of art, reusing and recycling them among themselves, to build artistic pieces such as sculpture or installation.
Recycling as a working method, objet trouvé, assemblage and Ready Made as a source of inspiration. An unconscious game from childhood, a three-dimensional object puzzle that will be part of a new piece, with touches of humor, irony and mass pop culture.
“The discovery .... this is my motivation to create, the curiosity that chance provokes, to nourish myself with objects of various kinds, searching the beaches of Menorca after the winter storms or recovering objects in the streets and containers of my neighborhood, objects abandoned, thrown away, forgotten, dragged by the waves of the sea, appropriating material to build my pieces. "
Courtesy Artamore Sitges.
Anna Roser
www.benvistbcn.com
Cassà de la Selva, 1974. Anna Roser is a postmodern sculptor who has studied Interior Design in Barcelona and London. She creates large-format sculptures and paintings, and has 10 years of experience as an artist, decorator and creator of spaces. "We use recycled materials to transform the space with recycled elements to create a great impact at an affordable cost."
César Santos
www.artamoresitges.com
Barcelona, 1973.César Santos "El Constructor" is an artist who uses recycled materials to build dolls, houses, decorations, vehicles and everything you can imagine. Before, as a draftsman and screenwriter, he used pencil and paper. Now any ground plug or clamp dropped from the sky can become part of an important piece. Art is his way of life, and gives everything meaning. Imagination is everyone's heritage and this is his way of expressing it.
Courtesy Artamore Sitges.
Thriller Doll Bebe Madmax (2020)
46 x 20 x 20cm
Characters made out of used dolls and other recycled materials.
Thriller Doll Austronauta Zombie (2019)
47 x 25 x 20 cm.
Characters made out of used dolls and other recycled materials.
Chatabot (2019)
20x14x8cm.
Robots made out of plastic caps and other recycled materials.
Yoshihito Suzuki
campanarbol.tumblr.com
Tokio (Japón), 1987. In 2007 Yohihito visited Barcelona for the first time and it became a great source of artistic inspiration. In 2011 he returned to study at La Llotja. In 2015 he participated in an art residency in Iceland and again recognized the importance and greatness of nature. In 2017 he married and returned to Barcelona, to live. In 2018 he starts the Organic Idea project. He participates in Art Nit Mallorca, in 2019, and Inund’art, in Girona, in 2020.
His work’s general theme is Artificiality and Nature and is inspired by the natural world and environmental problems such as the climate crisis. The human being, who should be part of nature, is destroying it. In the Organic Idea project, he is trying to bring the artificial to the natural conceptually. The color generated by his latest works is the color blue. It is pessimistic, on the one hand, representing sadness, and optimistic on the other, being the color of birth in various cultures. Using this bipolar color, he projects our hope and despair with respect to the climate crisis.
Yolanda Uriarte
Barcelona, 1965.Yolanda Uriarte is a self-taught cook and sculptor. She started to make art with recycled materials in 1992, exploring the possibilities of old iron, which she has always liked to use, both to give it a second life and a unique character to her work. In 1993 she held her first exhibition in Nyon (Switzerland), and in 1996 she participated in the Marathon of Creative Recicling of Barcelona, organized by Drap-Art. She was selected to participate in local and international exhibitions and festivals, including three editions of La Braderie de l’Art, in Roubaix (France).
“I have always been interested in art and recycling, and I am attracted to iron as a material to work with. They say that I carry it in my blood (my family is originally from the Basque Country, where my great-grandmother owned a foundry)”. The work she presents her warns us that the catastrophe also menaces the sea. All the waste that we don't know where to dump. There is hope?.
