Scultpure, painting, and creativity meet in international-facing exhibit

In Catalonia, one doesn’t have to go to the biggest cities to see innovative art with an international gaze. In the northern coastal town of Palafrugell, at the Can Mario museum of contemporary sculpture, art-lovers can visit the new Xavier Escribà exhibit where sculpture, painting, and creativity merge.

Titled ‘Éloge de l’Amour,’ the exhibit displays a selection of around thirty pictorial objects, all connected by the concept of painting and the creative process. “Everything is paint on canvas, leading me down different paths,” explained the artist. Born in Paris, Escribà was trained in fine arts in both the Catalan and French capital; he regularly exhibits in both countries, but lives in the county of Baix Empordà.

Executed with acrylic paint and linen canvas that seems to wind upwards, fragment, or fold over itself, all the while being “paintings that have volume.”  The display is also multi-dimensional, including ones very personal to the artist himself. Indeed, the museum is also showing contributions and commentaries on Escribà’s work made by 17 of those closest to him.

Escribà’s work is characterized by a desire to “transgress” the limits of traditional painting and experiment with only two mediums: acrylic paint and linen canvas. The artist explained that he “starts with a pictoral procedure, never knowing how it will end.” In this process, the canvas takes up more and more volume until it becomes a sculpture, adorned with primary colors. And, as paintings, they always maintain contact with the wall. 

The exhibit takes up two rooms and is part of Can Mario’s winter program, alongside ‘The beauty of the human form’ by Xita Fornt (Barcelona, 1934). Both will open their doors on January 20 and run until mid-May.