Gallery Lightness21

Antoní Yranzo

Catalan Wood Sculptor and Industrial Designer

Antoní Yranzo (b.1956) is a wood sculptor and industrial designer in Barcelona, whose intriguing studio in the Poblenou district of the city, where he has worked as an artist since the 1990s, is housed in a 1943 industrial building, originally a family workshop for cabinet-making and carpentry.

Yranzo believes in “giving more than one chance to objects and materials”, re-using found wood and honouring the ageing process of all materials that he incorporates into his sculptures, including wire, hemp rope, metal, and untreated stones.

“Objects of observation and integration” as he describes them, Yranzo’s work is both large and small, static and mobile, “simple physics” and intriguing meanings. Beauty of forms and materials that often evoke Paul Valéry’s line - quoted by Italo Calvino - “One should be light like a bird, and not like a feather”. Balance, movement, humour, nature, physics: Yranzo’s work captures the Catalan spirit.

“Turning the used and mundane into something magical, Yranzo’s Poblenou studio has the air of an alchemist’s workshop, where tools sit alongside sculptures and mobile works begin to move, out of the corner of your eye. Above all, his work expresses a love and knowledge of wood, air, forms, engineering, and raw connections - they are tactile and collectible, with a surrealist’s eye and playful spirit. They are works to share your life with.”

“I first met Antoní Yranzo in 2019, when I co-curated the ‘Timber Rising’ exhibition at Roca Barcelona Gallery, and included two of Yranzo’s sculptures in the exhibition, one static and one mobile. Visiting his studio was a fascinating experience - he is an artist with an absolute understanding and mastery of his materials, with roots in Barcelona’s industrial design.” Clare Farrow

Please contact the Gallery for the artist’s Catalogue and to discuss works or commissions.