Baixamar I by Xavier Monclús on Art Jewelry Forum

Since 2016, Xavier Monclús has developed an artistic project called Silent Architectures. During his journey, Monclús has moved from the more narrative style into a rather formally refined one close to abstraction. The special architecture of his beloved island of Menorca is his current source of multiple inspiration. In this sense, the object/brooch Baixamar I (Low Tide I) represents a typical house on the cliff of the port in Maó, the capital. Monclús obsessively builds white Menorcan houses with impeccable white Mediterranean walls. Their windows seem to look at the artist as if they were eyes by establishing an inspiring but silent dialogue with him. Monclús sees himself reflected in these houses and has the need to inhabit their emptiness by embracing them with his soul. Those constructions are metaphorical, as they express the artist’s wish to retreat to a timeless refuge away from our culturally infertile outdoors.