Miquel Navarro is one of Spain’s most renowned contemporary sculptors. After graduating from the San Carlos School of Fine Arts of Valencia, Navarro’s earliest steps as an artist speak of a profound interest in the human body and its connection with architecture and the environment. From 1974 onwards, this concern led to the creation of his signature installations of cities, made up by all sorts of buildings—a symbolic allusion to the human figure—reduced to pure geometric volumes which are the outcome of a slow, meditated process. The streets of these cities, which beholders walk through with their gaze, give rise to notions such as figuration-abstraction, unity-multiplicity and horizontality-verticality, and create an otherworldly atmosphere. They are silent and timeless cities shrouded in a metaphysical halo that represent, in the artist’s own words, past, present and future.

This same reflection also subtends his drawings, a field of work defined by greater immediacy, and an absolutely central medium in Miquel Navarro’s practice. In fact, the sculptor’s entry in the art world, back in 1964, was through drawing, and he has always maintained the belief that it is the best field for expression and experimentation, an intimate space for quick, impromptu representation and for a direct transcription of ideas.

The iconographic elements in Navarro’s architectural installations—fountains, towers, castles… rendered in geometric volumes—also abound in his drawings, as one can readily appreciate in Ciudad bidón o Composición (5), 2001, a watercolour from the BBVA Collection. The composition is reminiscent of Soca II, a work from 1988 in which a prominent cylindrical element, which recalls the drum or barrel in this drawing, looms over a host of small constructions spread below it. Here, the delicate drawing contrasts with the forceful presence of the central element in the piece. In turn, the shadows cast by the constructions create impossible perspectives that further underscore the mysterious, metaphysical quality of the drawing.

Influenced by his personal experiences and the imprint left by his hometown of Mislata and the city of Valencia, the work of Miquel Navarro invites spectators to enter an urban world teeming with symbolism and to reflect on their own corporeity and existence.