Miquel Barceló, a universe of beauty and talent, rooted in the Mediterranean

It is impossible to speak of the beauty of the Balearic Islands without referencing Miquel Barceló, a restless, versatile and genuine artist who has managed to capture such beauty in his personal universe filled with textures and colours.

Born in Felanitx on the 8^th January 1957, it was in his native Mallorca where he first experimented with art influenced by his mother’s artistic heritage in landscape painting and where he learned to love the Mediterranean Sea, one of his main sources of inspiration.

As a result of his trips to Mali, the light, the landscape and the way of life on the African continent would unavoidably also mark the subject and technique of his work. So today, Barceló’s work is as rich as it is varied in inspiration, techniques and formats, taking on numerous cultural references and reflections on his personal and environment and literary concerns. A prolific career that in 2003 earned him the Prince of Asturias Award in Arts.

With hundreds of exhibitions around the world in such prestigious venues like the Louvre or the Pompidou Centre in Paris, but always with his beloved Mallorca close to heart, in 2007 he finished one of his biggest projects, the ceramic mural related to the miracle of loaves and fish in the Palma Cathedral Sant Pere Chapel, a must-see piece of work. Coinciding with its opening, Barceló was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Balearic Islands University.

Artists as diverse as Joan Miró, Paul Klee, Jackson Pollock, Veláquez or Rembrandt led him to explore American abstract expressionism, baroque painting, action painting and conceptual art among many other trends that Barceló learned tirelessly and without doubt, influenced the Majorcan artist’s neoexpressionist imagination.

Continually experimenting, some of his most famous works evolved over time, turning to organic elements whose decomposition became part of his own artistic meaning or subjecting his paintings to the reaction of the weather.

He also created large collage series with cardboard and paper, which he would apply afterwards on canvas, drawing in on the animal theme. Years later, he opened another important chapter in his career through the illustration of books such as Dante’s Divine Comedy or El libro del Océano by Enrique Juncosa, among others. The Chamber of Human Rights at the UN in Geneva, inaugurated in 2008, is also one of his most internationally acclaimed works that is open to visits.