Blanca Muñoz presents Tornasol, a large-scale steel sculpture created thanks to the BBVA Foundation Grants to Researchers and Cultural Creators

The work’s construction involved laminating and lacquering the steel in the United Kingdom, perforating it in Spain and assembling it in Romania. ‘It’s been a long, complex and costly process, particularly due to the size of the sculpture; and it would have been extremely difficult to do without support such as that provided by the Leonardo Grant to Researchers and Cultural Creators,” explained the artist.

The steel structure is covered with perforated plates. Green, gold and magenta are among the seven colors irradiated by Tornasol, helping to give a feeling of movement to this monumental piece, whose chromatic combinations and versatility of line confer an unsuspected lightness. Blanca Muñoz explains: ‘When we observe a large-scale sculpture of perforated colored plates it generates a dynamic pointillism, it becomes a static object that appears to move, a volume that is transformed when the spectator walks around it and changes continuously with the effect of the light.’

This work is the start of a new period for the sculptor of working on stainless steel, and introduces color combinations for the first time. ‘Covering my works of welded bars with steel plates – I’ve been perforating them for years – has lent volume and movement to my spatial structures, making them more dynamic as the scale increases. Now these stainless-steel perforated plates have gone a step further and needed the introduction of color; not simply a color superimposed or painted on the surface, but lacquered during the process of manufacturing the material, so that the metallic qualities of reflection and irradiation of light are not only not lost but intensified as they combine with other colors,’ she explains.

The key concepts around which her creations revolve are: ‘Admiration for thought, art and nature; interest in light, space and forms, in the physical forces that make possible the organization of matter, its structure and configuration.’ Her interest in the dialogue between art and science, the cosmos and theories explaining its evolution, and on models of interpretation that encapsulate a great beauty, led her to accept an invitation to spend a month at the Astrophysics Institute of the Canary Islands.

Tornasol is on show at the Marlborough Gallery in Madrid until April 30, together with some twenty smaller-scale stainless steel and ceramic sculptures representing Blanca Muñoz’s recent work.