14 - JOAN ARTIGAS “Artigasplanas” (Vilassar de Dalt, 1960).

JOAN ARTIGAS “Artigasplanas” (Vilassar de Dalt, 1960). "Small, Black Swan." Bronze and steel. Edition No. 2 of 50. Signed and dated. Certificate of authenticity included. Measurements: 35 x 14.2 x 15.5 cm. Joan Artigas’s sculptural work strikes a delicate balance between figure and space, between the organic and the constructive. His visual language is rooted in the female figure, rendered with a restrained and silent, almost introspective poetics that seems suspended in a time of its own. His bronze figures do not seek anatomical detail or descriptive realism, but rather suggestion: elongated bodies, minimal gestures, and schematic faces that convey serenity, fragility, and contemplation. Artigas integrates the figure into geometric structures of iron or steel that function as architectural settings. These constructivist spaces do not enclose the figure, but rather support and accompany it, establishing a dialogue between the rigidity of the metal and the expressive warmth of the bronze. Empty space is just as important as the material itself: the iron lines define the space and amplify the sense of stillness, balance, and suspension. Joan Artigas, known artistically as Artigasplanas, holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Barcelona. For decades, he combined his creative work with teaching, serving as a professor of sculpture at the Pau Gargallo School of Art and Design in Badalona from 1988 to 2020. Beginning in 2004, he began exhibiting regularly in art galleries and at international art fairs. He currently exhibits regularly in galleries across twelve countries on three continents and participates annually in approximately fourteen international art fairs. His work is regularly featured in galleries such as Eye Contemporary Art Gallery (Brussels, Berlin, Stockholm, and Milan), Galerie Astrid Cornelisse (Naarden and Cologne), Galerie Rasmus (Herning), Galeria Víctor Lope (Barcelona), and La Destil·leria Galeria (Mataró). Among his most recent exhibitions and art fairs are Naarden The Art Fair (Netherlands, 2024), the Affordable Art Fair in Brussels, Berlin, and Stockholm, the Discovery Art Fair (Cologne), Art Herning (Denmark), and UP-Fair Milano. In addition to his gallery work, Artigas has public sculptures in cities such as Bordeaux, Badalona—where he unveiled the work *Donants de sang* in 2023—and Vilassar de Dalt, consolidating a career marked by formal coherence, international reach, and a profound sculptural sensibility.