Manel Rovira Spanien, b. 1952

Galerie von Opel is pleased to present the work of Manel Rovira which is part of the collaboration with Museum Mater (Barcelona) and exhibiting from the 5 October to the 9 November in our Gallery.

Manel studied design at EINA in Barcelona before moving from the classroom to the workshop of one of his teachers, the artist Robert Llimós, who took him on as an assistant. After completing his military service, Rovira held his first solo exhibition, Implosió-Explosió, in 1975 at the historic Els 4 Gats Gallery in Palma de Mallorca, directed by Ferran Cano. During the final years of the Franco regime, Rovira embraced conceptual art as a form of opposition. With Spain’s transition to democracy, he returned to the traditional disciplines of the fine arts, painting, graphic work, and above all, sculpture. Over the years, he has exhibited in venues such as the Alter Ego galleries, ARCO, the Fundació Elsa Peretti, and the Fundació Artigas.

His work, described as a flourishing “unusual garden” of forged, carved, braided, or painted botanical and entomological forms, reveals a deep fascination with nature. Dragonflies, plants, and insects populate his artistic universe, transformed through meticulous craftsmanship into a poetic language.

Like an engineer solving practical problems with grace and precision, Rovira uses his hands to shape beauty and harmony. For him, art is another form of nature, germinating, flourishing, and offering new ways to inhabit and improve the environment.