Miquel Barceló: Recent Paintings

18 March - 25 April 1998 London
Overview

In Spain Miquel Barcelo (born 1957) is undoubtedly the most celebrated artist of his generation, referred to as "the new Picasso". This exhibition surveys his exuberant output over the last five years, during which time he has been acclaimed throughout Europe and America. His last exhibition in London was his retrospective at the Whitechapel Gallery in 1994. The Timothy Taylor Gallery will exhibit twenty of his canvases and works on paper of various sizes that have never been seen before. 

Travels in Mali are Barcelo's inspiration. Dusty roads, desert landscapes, watering holes, fruit, pigeons, fish, donkeys are depicted. His richly textured paintings are seductively reminiscent of the African landscape and earth. 

Barcelo was born in the small town of Felanitx in the South of Mallorca (Spain) in 1957. He studied in Mallorca and Barcelona, and began exhibiting in Mallorca in 1974. He had his first exhibition on the Spanish mainland in 1981, was selected for Documenta 7 in Kassel (Germany) in 1982, and quickly established his national and international reputation. He know divides his time between studios in Mallorca, Paris and Mali. Recently he started to produce an ambitious cycle of works on paper which draw on his Mali experiences. This body of work reveal one of Barcelo's abiding concerns: the overlap between the human and animal kingdoms.