A series of recent works by Francesca Martí has been installed in the lobby of the Jumeirah Hotel & Spa, including her monumental Humilis sculpture standing guard in a shimmering, circular pool, overlooking the bay of the Port de Sóller.
Focusing on aspects of human behavior, Martí’s sculptures are symbols of positive change, unity, action and progress. As they stand, walk and run, her Believers provide a universal portrait of mankind. «They are like explorers discovering new lands,» says the artist. «My sculptures begin with modeling clay with my hands, shaping forms in a tactile way.» Later in a foundry in Madrid, these sculptures are cast on a larger scale.
At Jumeirah Port Sóller, Martí’s larger-than-life Humilis welcomes the viewer to distant horizons. Shimmering in turquoise at the entrance of the lobby, standing in the raised pond beneath the glass dome, Martí’s Humilis sculpture appears to be walking on water.
Meanwhile, a group of her smaller Believers in yellow and purple traverse across one of her photographs of a city in flux. The manipulated image in this installation at Jumeirah is part of a cycle of works created by Martí, in which she shows urban areas in Amman, Madrid, New York, Shanghai and Stockholm, simultaneously depicted as being cities in dynamic growth and in dramatic decline. In dialogue with her sculptures in Yellow Energy Ray (2020), Martí interprets the codes of human communication, expressed through the subtle gesture of the tilted head of one of her smaller figures or the energetic movement of one of her Believers in motion.
Cities & Believers – Central Station in Stockholm, 2020. Photograph and small clay figures installed in a plexiglass glass box. 100 x 100 x 10 cm.
Martí’s ongoing series of Dreamers and Believers are expressive human figures which exist as beacons of hope in a larger, complex world. They are posed alone as monumental sculptures in bronze and polished aluminium, revealing the handmarks and fingerprints made by the artist while she was sculpting them in her Mallorcan studio, or they are gathered together in groups of smaller figures, migrating through the landscape, striding towards the future.
Born in Soller, Francesca Martí is a world-renowned artist whose work encompasses sculpture, photography, installation, video, drawing and performance. She uses her work to discuss such global issues as migration, mass-communication, chaos and the loss of collective memory. However she never loses sight of her ability to transmit strong personal emotions and creative passion. Since 1990, Martí’s work has been featured in exhibitions in museums and galleries in Spain, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Sweden, Slovakia, the U.K, the U.S., Jordan, Korea, China and beyond.
