The Catalan artist presents a collage that reproduces the rhythmic blinking of the eyes with the ticking of a clock.
If this were a film, the first scene would focus on a little girl’s hands patiently cutting a piece of paper. “I have the same skill for cutting as I do for drawing. Scissors are like a pencil to me,” confesses Magels Landet, who will exhibit her latest artistic creation in collaboration with Oris at the Gómez y Molina jewelry store in Marbella. The Catalan artist and the Swiss watch company join forces in “Confluences.”
The collaboration with Oris, a company founded in 1904, is part of a trajectory in which the Catalan artist has sought “the confluence between different disciplines.” The collaborative project with the Swiss watchmaker is a collage that establishes a parallel between the blinking of the eyes and the movement of the clock’s hands. “That ticking is very similar.” This synchronicity is shown through eyes drawn in a circle “as if they were looking at the clock.” “Starry gazes because the eyes look like stars.”
If this were a novel, the first lines would describe a girl drawing eyes. “Since I was little, I would pick up a pencil and draw faces and eyes.” “Back then they were real, now they are abstract.” These eyes, captured in the collages, move in time with the ticking of the clock.
The Catalan artist’s affinity with the luxury watchmaking firm Oris seems perfectly natural, “organic,” as we say nowadays, considering that Magels’s first professional steps were in the field of jewelry.
After studying Philosophy, “which served as a foundation for everything that came after,” she went on to the La Llotja School of Arts in Barcelona. From 1986 onwards, she embarked on a research career that has led her through large-format sculpture, digital media, photography, and robotics. For over three decades, she has explored avenues for artistic expression. “I can’t do anything else. I feel it’s born within me.” Magels has poured this extensive experience into the collages that can be seen at Oris Marbella.
From Matter to Line
But this is not a film or a novel, but rather the story of an obsession. Or rather, of the obsessions that have inspired Landet’s work.
The Metamorphosis period corresponds to the obsession with the transformation in which we are immersed, “It can be applied to our lives. In an instant, everything can change color.”
To this period belong the collection of pieces that open and close, and depending on the movement, signify one thing or another. The mask is another form of metamorphosis.
The Meninas respond to the obsession with communicating with the viewer. In her hands, Velázquez’s character takes on a new life. “The exquisite process of translating Las Meninas into geometric terms has been guided by two very familiar forms: spirals that often culminate in large eyes,” stated Javier Portús, PhD in Art History and Head of Conservation of Spanish Painting up to 1800 at the Prado National Museum. Magels reinterprets Las Meninas in two phases: in 2013 as a collage and ten years later as a sculpture that gazes at you from a distance. “A figure that, depending on the profile it adopts, changes and resembles a tower,” the artist explains.
“The transformation depends on the moment and the circumstances.” A lover of embracing other disciplines, she was a pioneer in the field of robotics. In 1996, she began her first art and robotics project at the Institute for Machinery in Construction at the University of Karlsruhe (Germany) with Professor Thomas Bock. In 2009, one of his sculptures, ‘Còsmic Unió’ (Cosmic Union), was unveiled in Cologne on Barcelona Avenue, commemorating the 25th anniversary of the twinning between the Catalan and Rhineland capitals.
This perspective of constant change lends Magel’s work the label of “diverse.” “Transformation comes from the space where we live.”
If one had to find a word to define Magels Landet, it would be “evolution.” He explains the transition from the Totem era—large-format figures where materiality predominates, grand architectures of oxidized iron—to lines, with stainless steel. “The line is a traversable space where you can enter and exit, move within it.”
From the impressive totem in its dimensions to the almost ethereal line where a figure can project a feeling of contemplation, “like being in a chapel.”
Integrating Nature
A trip to Kauai (the Garden Island, Hawaii) in 2006 marked another step forward in her transformation. “Nature penetrated me so profoundly that I returned to Barcelona and started making leaf after leaf.” Nature and color. This marked the beginning of her collage period. “I’m always on the move, traveling to other places. It’s my identity.”
In addition to the transition, Magels is defined by her relationship with other disciplines.
“Art shouldn’t be confined to museums. It has to go out into the world. I see nature as something that must be integrated into our lives, not just as a beauty to be observed.” This attitude leads her to view the work of an artist as that of an activist. “Artists have to be committed. To raise their voices.”
While years ago she felt drawn to large-format sculpture, large works—”I like working with iron”—the passage of time led her to the lightness of line.
An artist who works alone, “although we all need help when working on large formats,” who began by working with enamel on copper at 900 degrees, who breathed new life into Las Meninas, and who cuts as if she were drawing, arrives in Marbella alongside a prestigious watchmaking firm in another chapter of her long professional life.
She has exhibited at the Visual Arts Museum in New York and the Joan Miró Foundation, among other exhibitions in eight countries. Since 2008, he has been a member of the Pacific Rim Sculptors Group in Oakland. His work encompasses sculpture, installations, collage, photography, and video.
Among his recent exhibitions are ‘The Mural for Peace’ in 2021 at La Galerie, Alliance Française in Dubai; ‘Art Inspired by Travel’ in 2022 at the Commonwealth Club of California (San Francisco), curated by Robert Melton; and in February 2023, he exhibited the sculpture ‘Game of Hearts’ (two intertwined hearts), along with other works in the exhibition ‘Somebody Says Love,’ organized by AvA Gallery at Falcon Villa in Dubai and at the Museum of Sonoma County, California, in 2024. Upon his return from Marbella, he plans to settle an old score.
For years, he collected sandstone in the Ebro Delta. While others swam, Magels gathered stones and made enamel sculptures. “Today the stones have disappeared. Only those she collected on her walks remain. “True treasures” that she plans to donate to the Maritime Museum of San Carlos de la Rápida (Tarragona), her hometown. Magels Landet, an artist “inclined towards introspection” and paradoxically obsessed with her work communicating with the outside world, a lover of collaboration and interdisciplinarity, arrives in Marbella with a project that harmonizes with high-end watchmaking. At a time when jewelry is leading the growth of the luxury market, and within that sector, watchmaking. Collectors are increasingly valuing craftsmanship and rarity, according to the spring update of Bain-Altagamma’s Luxury Goods Worldwide Market Study.
Magels Landet and Rafael Picazo, director of ORIS, will inaugurate the exhibition “Confluences” on July 24th at 7:00 p.m. at Gómez y Molina Jewelers, Avenida Ramón y Cajal, 15, Marbella.
