Pep Canyelles

PEP CANYELLES (Palma, Balearic Islands, 1949).
Untitled.1991.
Mixed media on paper.
Signed in the lower left corner.
Measurements: 79 x 56 cm (frame).
Of self-taught formation Pep Canyelles is a Balearic artist who moved during his youth to Paris, where he entered in contact with the world of the art, developing this way his facet like artist. He was part of the movement Nueva Plástica Mallorquina. In 1969 he spent a short time in Paris and in 1970 he settled in Barcelona. But, a year later, he returned to Palma for health reasons. At first he turned to painting and participated in the artistic subversion with the group Criada 74 (1973-1977), with a renovating intention. In 1978 he shared walls at the Museum of Mallorca with Vicenç Torres, and the following year he had a solo exhibition at the 4 Gats Gallery in Palma where, in addition to paintings, he presented objects of a playful nature, with a personal style that seemed to want to work with painting and sculpture at the same time. They were small, multicolored wooden pieces, followed by a metallic series of motorcyclists with sidecars, close to the sculpture-object. Canyelles had come into contact with iron in the family smithy. Later, already immersed in the sculptural world, he exhibited in different places in Mallorca, the Peninsula, Egypt and Germany, Holland and the United States. In the 1980 exhibition in Cairo, Canyelles was invited by the Egyptian Ministry of Culture together with Jaume Pinya and Horacio Sapere. In 1981 he obtained a scholarship from the Ministry of Culture in the promotion of Plastic Arts, a fact that stimulated him to work intensely. In 1986, with the exhibition Paisajes aquí y ahora, at the Colegio de Arquitectos de Palma, he confirmed his preference for iron. In the nineties he entered a process of geometrism that brought him closer to minimalism with austere, large-format works. Subsequently, another stage of production led him to recover color on iron, Corten steel or sheet metal. These are works in which he returned to constructivism, avoiding color in search of chromatic sobriety. In a last stage, he worked with gates that want to imprison the air or emptiness, structures that cross out the space modifying it with their presence. He participated in the exhibitions "Visual Poetry of the Catalan Countries" (Mataró 1980) and "Experimental Poetic Space" (Paris 1981), as well as in exhibitions in Pavia (Italy), Antwerp (Belgium) and Valencia.