For the first time, Galeria Marc Domènech organises an exhibition of the work of Ramon Guillen-Balmes (Cornellà, 1954 – Barcelona, 2001), an extraordinary artist to whom no exhibition has been dedicated in a private gallery for a long time, and which delves into his complex body of work. “Tot allò comprensible amb una mà” aims to fill this gap and contribute to showcasing a lesser-known aspect of his work: his drawings.

The exhibition consists of a group of 50 drawings and a sculptural object titled “Per l’atracció dels cossos. (11 Models d’ús per a Sensi Cervantes)”. Both sets represent a large part of his artistic universe. A world characterised by an unusual perspective, far from pre-established canons and learned recipes, in which he explores a realm of unusual forms – strange morphologies that evoke contradictory feelings spurred by the unsettling sensualism of his images.

The set of drawings, created between 1999 and 2001, are the last pieces the artist made before his untimely death in 2001 at the age of 47. 23 years have passed since they were last exhibited in a tribute show organised by Galeria Pèrgamon at its headquarters, Duc de la Victòria, 2. The exhibited works are, therefore, a magnificent example of how Guillen-Balmes breaks boundaries and re-signifies them, always appealing to nature and the body, and everything that affects them physically and emotionally. The result of his process is a display of artefacts and forms that lie between the useful and the useless, between the possible and the improbable, between authenticity and artifice, which, far from guiding us along a predetermined path, opens the doors to multiple interpretations that travel between the object, poetry and the unconscious. These aspects perhaps find their fullest expression in the objects he created using felt, wood and resin. Most of these objects, likely stemming from his classificatory desire, were grouped into series such as “Arqueologies d’artista”, “Objets trouvé”, or “Models d’ús”. The sculpture/object currently on display in this exhibition belongs to this last series.

The ‘Models of Use’ were artefacts that the artist created based on proposals he made to his friends, or commissions he received, with the intention of addressing desires, wishes, problems or resolving some sort of lack. Whether it was a proposal or a commission, the artist had to accept the project, create the work, and photographically document how the person tried on the piece, with the particularity that the person could never purchase the piece they tried on. The work on display is part of the commission that his partner at the time, Sensi Cervantes, gave him in 1995. The commission consisted of eleven wishes: “… to protect me from envy; to isolate me from pain; to announce love; for the attraction of bodies; to be loved; to know how to think, still; to hear laughter around me; to share life; for a bath of light; to grow; to have time”. These eleven models of use were exhibited in Grenoble (France) in the spring of 1996.

For Guillen-Balmes, therefore, the process of creating the work and its connection with the body and the senses was just as important as the work itself. Arnau Puig wrote in 2002: “Guillen-Balmes realised that creativity resides in the eye and in the ability, possibility, and sensitive decision to capture the manual gesture precisely at the moment when the gaze – and also touch – find their satisfaction. The forms of his work come from elements of consumer civilisation, but these cultural remnants are retained, cut, and placed at that point where real deconstruction becomes an object of desire”.