Eirik Audunson Skaar’s artistic practice is rooted in a community-based method that combines plastic pollution awareness with artistic creation. At the core of his work is active participation and collective engagement. Students from schools near each project site take part in beach cleanups, identifying plastics by use and origin, and ultimately recycling the materials into outdoor reliefs or sculptures. This process not only raises awareness about ocean health but also leaves behind a statement of environmental art in the public space.
With a bold fusion of rap, Latin American rhythms, and electronic sounds, La Maga crafts powerful and dynamic sonic landscapes where past and future converge in an electrifying present.
Modest Cuixart grew up in a family of doctors and pharmacists in a cultural environment. He began his medical studies to follow the family tradition but left after two years to pursue painting, his true calling.
Together with his cousin Antoni Tàpies, Cuixart met Joan Brossa, Joan Ponç, philosopher Arnau Puig, and Joan Tharrats, with whom he co-founded the magazine Dau al Set in 1948. Thanks to a scholarship from the French Institute, Modest traveled to Paris with Antoni Tàpies in December 1950. There, he met Picasso and Miró, attended the Sorbonne, and immersed himself in the “art autre” movement of Dubuffet and Fautrier.
In the late 1950s, Cuixart created his famous metallic drippings, which are part of his unique material-based informalism. Praised by the world’s most prestigious critics as a true innovator of informalism on an international scale, he won some of the most coveted awards: the Gold Medal at the prestigious Swiss Abstract Painting Prize and the Grand Prize for Painting at the 5th São Paulo Biennial, competing against figures like his admired Francis Bacon, Alberto Burri, Karel Appel, and Lucio Fontana.
This was a splendid period, during which his success multiplied, participating in major international events and exhibiting in the leading museums and galleries across numerous countries. High-profile collectors worldwide acquired his works. Critical articles from top critics were published in prestigious international magazines like Art Actuel International (Lausanne), Quadrum (Brussels), and Arts Magazine (New York), among many others. André Breton considered him when selecting a Spanish artist for the 1959 International Surrealist Exhibition E.R.O.S., alongside Marcel Duchamp, for the Daniel Cordier gallery.
In the early 1960s, Cuixart abandoned informalism, influenced by Bertold Brecht’s thinking, focusing on human experience and objects. Following his dramatic burnt dolls (Nameless Children), which symbolize the innocent victims of violence, he entered a phase of great originality, combining organic, sinister, and erotic traits. This period marked his success in New York, where he merged material-based informalism with graphic elements in ink and soft colors.
The work selected for the Drap-Art image this year, Post Salut (1963), comes from this period. According to Raquel Medina, PhD in Art History, ACCA-AICA critic, and independent curator:
“This piece reflects a moment when the artist felt that the informalism that had brought him so much success had become obsolete. New concerns about the human condition emerge in his work. These are the first pieces in which he incorporates objects and fragments (dolls, airplanes, shoes…) to reflect and denounce the tragedies of innocent victims in all wars. In fact, he evokes and exorcises one of his personal ghosts: the terrifying bombings of Barcelona that he experienced at the age of 13.”
Xavier Pons holds a higher degree as a mural painting technician from the Llotja School of Art and Design. He studied Fine Arts at the UPV and in Leioa, Bilbao. He has attended various specialized courses in modeling techniques, advanced illustration, layout, molds, and new materials applied to sculpture.
He is a multidisciplinary artist who, for years, has combined painting with the creation of sculptures made from various recycled objects. Once melted, chopped, and stripped of their original function and meaning, these objects become the raw material with which he carries out his work, often related to futuristic and science fiction worlds.
In this edition of Drap-Art, he presents a new line of work created with spider webs, which he “catches” and transfers (or transports) onto paper as he finds them, allowing the spider to showcase its art and nature to surprise us, while he overcomes his phobia of arachnids.
Miguel Escobar holds degrees in Philology and Fine Arts from the Massana School of Art and Design in Barcelona. He is an artist who expresses himself through various disciplines. He has worked as an advertiser, published books of poetry and children’s stories, and exhibited his work using multiple forms such as installation, sculpture, painting, video, and photography.
Currently, his work is focused on a single project called SEDIERTO, which addresses his concern about the mismanagement of water and the resulting desertification. For him, “SEDIERTO is the silent cry that expresses the planet’s thirst.”
He views creation as a public good and works with the commitment to establish new connections with nature. Throughout his career, he has held solo and group exhibitions and led creative recycling workshops and poetry sessions.
Although he is a relatively young artist, he has a remarkable career and a prolific body of work in various fields. Performer, sculptor, painter, poet, musician, and lyricist, he embraces the Renaissance vision of the universal artist who navigates between the dreamlike and the empirical university.
He has held numerous exhibitions and received various accolades in painting, sculpture, illustration design, posters, magazine covers, role-playing games, and musical compositions.
Understanding art as a tool for social transformation, his works are created from a subversive perspective of reality, infused with a certain visual poetry. They highlight social injustices and ecological disorder. He advocates for essential rights and environmental preservation through a body of work that, more than that of an artist, is that of an alchemist capable of transforming what seems to be waste into art.
Massegú lives in his own House Museum in Sarrià de Ter, where he also creates his works, offers guided tours, and conducts workshops.
She holds a degree in German, English, and Spanish philology from the University of Cologne, Germany, and is a consecutive translator and interpreter, with a diploma from the UAB.
She grew up in Formentera, as the daughter of a painter and an art historian, and is the niece, cousin, and granddaughter of painters and sculptors, surrounded by artists and intellectuals. She has been active in the cultural world of Barcelona and the Balearic Islands for over 30 years.
In the 90s, she worked as an interpreter in the business and political world, as a translator in the editorial and comic book industry (Icària and Virus publishers, Makoki, Víbora, Comic Salon), and as a cultural manager and curator in the art world. She participated in the underground movement of the 90s in Barcelona, collaborating in organizing events such as Paleopoesia Urbana de Poble, and working on projects with Accidents Polipoètics, Rosa Pera, Joan Casellas, Xavier Sabater, among others.
In 1995, she founded the association Drap-Art with 13 other founding members, and has been dedicated to its management since then. Since 2019, she has been a member of the Cultural Council of the Balearic Government, and since 2022, she has been the curator of the Tardor d’Art de Formentera. In addition to her professional activity, she dedicates herself to the conservation, cataloging, and exhibition of the artistic-architectural heritage of her family, organizing, among other things, retrospectives of the work of her father, Hans Grass.
We are Jesús and Jean-Baptiste, two artisans based in Barcelona, creating hand-poured soy candles in recycled jars to reduce the toxic consumption of paraffin candles and promote a more environmentally friendly alternative.
Kandela’s handcrafted soy candles carry a unique authenticity, with each scent, personality, and untranslatable word creating a distinct experience in every candle.
We believe that a Kandela candle is more than just a candle. Candles take us on a journey through the world, through time, and help us discover new wonders of life. Imagine a world without scents.
The goal of my creations is to give a second life to newspaper and cardboard once they become waste, transforming them into beautiful pieces to wear on the body or as decorative objects for the home.
At the same time, I aim to contribute to the circular economy.
Almau creates unique pieces in wrought iron and fused glass, hand-painted using ancestral techniques while recycling all chemical components of the process, making them 100% nickel-free.
Our designs are adjustable and easily adapt to the body.
Marie Christiane Porcher is a woman of the Age of Aquarius, born into a family of wanderers.
A lover and passionate admirer of Mother Earth, its arts, ethnicities, civilizations, religions, cultures, and bodies in motion.
With a transgressive mind and a heart devoted to the evolution of being.
I am ME versus I AM, bringing heaven to earth, traveling in Love and unity through this new venture: YOSOYO.
Creator of Santa Branguita and various cultural and intercultural projects, Marie divides her time between dance, textile projects, and personalized guidance in evolutionary processes.
In the creation of its jewelry, rabal.925 applies traditional knowledge and techniques that have been passed down from generation to generation, crafting unique pieces with materials such as recycled noble woods and reclaimed .925 silver, always striving for more sustainable craftsmanship.
“Jewelry becomes art when aesthetic value takes precedence over material value.”
