Jaume Plensa: In small places, close to home

“As a sculptor, I always need to collaborate with other people to bring my work to life, but when I draw, my work flows directly from my brain and my heart onto my hands and the paper. Drawing is an incredible laboratory where you can develop intuitions – I feel much more free than when I am working with sculpture. Drawing is a place for freedom.”

In small places, close to home comprises two complementary installations of drawings that convey the richness of Plensa’s drawing practice. It highlights the artist’s devotion to a medium that embraces many materials and processes including collage, etched glass, industrial paints and solvents, and extends into three dimensions via wire drawings in space. Like his sculpture, Plensa’s drawing investigates the human condition and dreams of more progressive and united global futures, exploring opposing concepts such as language and silence, darkness and light.

The exhibition is presented in collaboration with the Picasso Museum, Antibes, and Galerie Lelong & Co., Paris, and alongside a survey publication of Plensa’s drawings published by Skira.

Works displayed in The Weston Gallery reflect Plensa’s belief in the importance of embedding human rights in political systems and of unifying diverse cultures, ages, genders, faiths, and ethnicities.

The exhibition continues in the 18th century Chapel where it resonates with its qualities as a spiritual and meditative place. Facing each other in silent communion in the nave are two sublime marble sculptures of girls’ heads with closed eyes that imply optimism for a world community and hope for a shared humanity. Their skin is covered with letters from different world alphabets, a motif that Plensa often uses to suggest the importance of togetherness whilst retaining their own richly unique cultural identities.