Miquel Aparici
1963, Barcelona
Miquel Aparici studied at the Massana School of Arts and Crafts in Barcelona and began his professional career as a graphic designer, a job he combined for a few years with writing scripts for comics and television. He is currently the art director of National Geographic Magazine in Spain. His artistic facet developed spontaneously, after a trip to Formentera, where he was fascinated by the natural beauty of the island and its fauna. At the end of the 90s, he began his professional career as an artist with an original collection of animal paintings made with coffee and sugar, which he exhibited at the 3ArtBcn Gallery, located in the old town of Barcelona, through which he also came to exhibit in New York City. From paper formats he passed on to three-dimensional beings and to creating sculptures using all kinds of utensils from ancient crafts and disused wooden and metal objects that he creatively combines using different types of techniques. Materials revived or, rather, animalized: old obsolete objects that take on a soul in Aparici’s sculptures, turning into unusual animals that fit in with each object in an almost natural way. The beauty and elegance of the result make us reflect on the hidden soul in the objects, but also on the return to nature: utensils made to measure for man end up paying homage to the jungle, to the forest, configuring a particular and original zoo. Aparici, like a wizard of Oz, puts tin hearts in creatures of recycled material: who is more inanimate or materialistic? The animal or us?
