Manel Àlvarez was born in Sant Feliu de Codnes (Barcelona, Spain) in 1945. He studied art in the San Juan Bosco school in Barcelona and under the guidance of his teacher, Juan Puigdollers, he began sculpting religious figures in wood. He continued to make sculpture after finishing the program and also worked as an industrial and interior designer. His success in these ventures afforded him the time and money to dedicate himself entirely to the vocation of sculpture.
On a scholarship from the Pagani Foundation in Milan, he went to Carrara, Italy where he began working in marble for the first time. Working with marble and the daily contact with sculptors of differing levels of experience, combined to gradually transform his work; there was a simplification from the neoclassical to a more personal style, synthesising human and organic forms.
Manel spent 14 years working in Italy and exhibiting in different countries throughout Europe including France, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, Luxembourg, Italy and Spain as well as Iran, Mexico, Brazil and the United States. Since 1993, he has had a permanent studio in a 13th century former mint in Barcelona, but he travels the world both for inspiration and to install various site-specific sculptures. While in Atlanta in 1996, working on the pieces he was making for the Olympic Games, Alvarez was invited to visit Emory University and was shown a magnificent collection of African art which someone had donated to the University. Shortly after, he spent a few days in New York and visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art which was also exhibiting a collection of African art. He was overcome emotionally by the pieces and that same night began working on what would be his future “Africa” series. He says: “I did not want to copy African art, nor to invent an art about Africa. I just wanted to transmit what that African art meant to me.”
It is very difficult for Manel to define or to classify the style of his work . When pushed, he defines his work as synthesis- essence; two words which are very similar yet complementary. Manel has always focused as a sculptor on two objectives. The first was to achieve a sense of weightlessness in his pieces through the use of line. The lines define the volumes and create the rhythm which gives the pieces (which are actually quite heavy) the sensation of being weightless, or defying gravity. The second objective was to capture the essence or the energy of what the work was trying to represent instead of simply making an interpretation of form. Through his method of abstraction and use of lines he seeks to give birth to the spirit, the soul of the object. The form, although simplified, is evident through the energy/soul of the work.
Although the pureness of the line in his sculpture shows the influence of Brancusi and Arp, Alvarez’s sculpture is both unique and personal. He has found inspiration in many themes and places: bullfighting, Africa, birds, and his current series ‘The Old Testament.’ What ties them together is his search for the essence of the subject, his corresponding use of material: wood, marble, granite, iron, and basalt, and the stimulating contrast and tension between opposing shapes and materials.
