Formabesta

FORMABESTA, Salvador (1968) and Juan Cidrás (1965).
Untitled, 2019.
Stoneware and enamel.
Provenance: Casado-Santapau gallery, Madrid.
Measurements: 69 x 46 x 26 cm.

This glazed ceramic piece was part of a solo exhibition held at the Casado Santapau gallery in 2019, in which the artist duo Salvador and Juan Cidrás surprised the public and critics with their unique sculptural pieces. The creative couple "Formabesta" creates architectural-looking forms, but they are impossible, strange architectures. As they themselves say: they seek a "strangeness of forms that blur the everyday in favor of the ambiguous and the mysterious". They explore the precarious and fragile nature of clay and experiment with the unexpected result after firing. For them, the process is key because it defines the finish. Explains Salvador of this series created specifically for the Casado-Santapau gallery: "the manual manufacture becomes unexpected after firing, as there is no control over what texture, what color or what area of the piece survives or is transformed. It is precisely this quality of transformation that enriches the creative act with nuances. The pieces are constructed in the need to improvise solutions; more clay, an interior reinforcement, the transition of color..., waiting for the next steps that uncover what is hidden, what is inaccessible and uncertain". Both brothers studied artistic ceramics at the EASD. Formabesta has also exhibited at the Vilaseco gallery in A Coruña, at the Salone in Milan and galleries in New York, Berlin and ARCO.