Enric Pladevall: nature, matter and spirituality

With a career that spans decades, Enric Pladevall (Vic, 1951) returns to his hometown to exhibit 'Zenit Temples – White Trilogy – Pocket Sculptures – Wardrobe'. This exhibition, far from being retrospective, invites you to enter his artistic universe from a renewed perspective.

The exhibition, which was inaugurated at the end of November at the Museu de l'Art de la Pell and can be visited until February, allows you to contemplate the evolution of Pladevall's work, which is known for its link with nature and matter, has led constant experimentation with forms, materials and technology.

One of the most recent projects in his career is the L'Olivar Foundation , located in Ventalló (Alt Empordà), where he has created an artistic landscape from a sculpture garden, a crypt and multipurpose installations, a whole stage for spiritual reflection and to gather various proposals, all of them guided by the love of art and nature.

In 'Temples del Zenit', Pladevall presents a proposal that connects megalithic architectural traditions with elements from other cultures, such as Shinto temples. With wooden logs, geometric structures, concrete formwork and torii gates, Pladevall builds a conceptual landscape that evokes an ascent towards the zenith, a poetic and at the same time mystical space. These works propose a reflection on the function of art as a way to access the unintelligible, the unknown.

'Temple Islàndia', Temples del Zenit, Enric Pladevall.

On the other hand, in the 'White Trilogy', Pladevall uses polychrome wood and textures that play with light and shadows, capturing the very essence of nature and using white as the predominant color. According to Ana M. Palomo Chinarro , professor at the UVic-UCC, "in the 'White Trilogy' Pladevall placed a lot of interest in technological artifice and returned to the search for the essence that emanates from form and matter. Made with polychrome wood, with white transparencies, patinas, textures, openings and cracks, shapes are revealed to us that sublimate the beauty of nature and distill energy, the emotions, the tensions and the extreme corporeality that characterize the sculptures of this creator".

Armari, Enric Pladevall (2023-2024)

The 'Armari' series, on the other hand, goes into less rational territories, proposing a space of purity and introspection, inspired by the popular tradition of domestic chapels and a vision that drinks from romanticism and the avant-garde. Finally, the 'Pocket Sculptures' offer condensed expressiveness in small dimensions. Without superfluous elements, these complex pieces contrast with their formal simplicity.

Escultures de butxaca, Enric Pladevall (2020-2024)