Messenger Species
Álvaro Soler-Arpa
In the exhibition Messenger Species we will explore the complex relationship between nature and contemporary toxic agents, which threaten the survival of numerous species in a changing and infected environment.
Inspired by the principles of evolution, Álvaro Soler Arpa's sculptures represent mutant animals, whose strange morphology is the result of uncontrollable genetic mutations caused by pollution. These fictitious beings, set in the near future, play with the limits between the possible and the impossible, the real and the imaginary, the graceful and the tortuous.
Soler Arpa's sculptures are fictitious victims of the whimsy and inpunity of modern man, reflecting the tragic reality of many endangered species today. Radioactivity causes beautiful iridescence in their coats, transgenesis endows them with limbs of elegant extravagance. In this imagined future - which is somewhat plausible for us today - strange fish with a high mercury content will swim in rivers and seas, animals of a third sex will give birth in an original way. Elephants with feathers, bipedal sheep, hairy reptiles, ruminating amphibians, two-headed lizards and moles with luminous eyes...
The distancing from nature is, for Soler-Arpa, cause and effect of the loss of spirituality of contemporary man. Through his sculptures he invites us to reflect on the devastating impact of pollution on the natural world and the urgent need to take measures to protect our biodiversity in this fragile moment in which we find ourselves.
Alvaro Soler-Arpa (Girona, 1974) graduated in drawing at the School of Arts and Crafts in Olot and later in illustration at the Llotja School in Barcelona. He then pursued a career in advertising and film that included drawing storyboards for directors such as Woody Allen, Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu and J. A. Bayona. Since 2005, he focuses his work in the visual arts, mainly in the creation of sculptures and installations, combining his knowledge of anatomy and drawing with his interest in organic forms. Throughout his artistic discourse there is an evident link with nature and a concern for the effect of man's hand on the environment. His almost futuristic creatures bear witness to the evolution of nature in response to the toxicity of our unbridled consumption.
Soler-Arpa is an artistic ambassador for the Plastic Pollution Coalition (PPC), a global non-profit organization whose mission is to end global dependence on single-use plastic. He has been invited by Goteborgs Konst Hall (Sweden) to collaborate in their youth education project Snacka om Konst (Let's talk about art). He has participated in editorial publications such as Plastic Ocean, Art and Science responses by Ingeborg Reichle, University of Applied Arts Vienna in 2020 (GRANTA in Spanish); AGUA by Galaxia Gutenberg in 2016. In 2015 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal British Society of Sculptors.