MADRID.- Galería Elvira González opened its second solo show of the Spanish artist Miquel Barceló.

The exhibition has 29 new works of which 15 are canvases, 12 are works on paper and 2 ceramics. All these works have been made in the past two years and are being shown to the public for the first time.

Life of Octopus is the title chosen by Barceló and refers to his deep link with the sea, its nature and wildlife, and with the relationship between humans and the seas. A romantic and desolate vision. An unsettling stormy sea that seems to relate to the moment in which we live. Some boats with people and some empty ones lost in the sea. A large multicoloured octopus of two meters presides over one of the exhibition rooms.

The exhibition shows other subjects in which Barceló has recently worked as drawings of Goethe’s book Faust, images of bullfighters and some classic stories and self-portraits.

On the occasion of Life of Octopus, a catalogue has been published by the gallery which, in addition to the works in the exhibition, features images from two notebooks that Miquel Barceló produced as he painted the works in the show. These notebooks as diaries, note the evolution of some paintings and also collect Barceló’s thoughts that range from everyday subjects and daily obligations to thoughts of philosophical and poetic nature.

I’d lead a life of octopus.
At night eating crabs and prawns
Inside the barracks in the morning light,
I would hardly ever go to the Ciutat, or to mass, or to the Marketplace.
All day long I wouldn’t do a thing, I’d observe the shell collections of hairy crabs and limpets.
I would watch out for brunettes while entertaining myself watching a sip of suspended ink, lush (circumspect) always about to project a definitive black spittle and end any conversation.

--Notebook by Mique Barceló Alchi, Bangkok, París, Mallorca, Delhi, 2018