Miguel Olivares

Miguel Olivares

Miguel Olivares is an artist based in Barcelona, Spain. Best known for his monumental murals, Olivares portrays common, everyday people who appear to be either at work, huddled near one another around a bar, or walking across city streets while wearing patterns and logos found on product packaging.  Through his representations of urban life, the artist utilizes the city’s architecture as a framing device that highlights the significance of interpersonal communication as seen through his arrangement of forms and body language.

Olivares carries a tangible genre while traversing across different media. His anonymous sculpture busts are made of clear resin, and contain a clash of found objects. His paintings and drawings reflect a collage technique that involves a layering of colors that ultimately piece together a single hue. However in the paintings, there is a clear sense of the urban, rural and dream-like vista all at once, while the drawings on metal serve as studies of color as a figurative form. Throughout each body of work, a dialogue emerges between products that are consumed and the consumers who also feel as if they are part of products themselves.

Miguel Olivares states that his earliest memory as a child was climbing into a closet to catch colors. His determination to make visual art that is widely accessible is reflected by his prolific output. Moreover his representations take on a new life when seen in large-scale murals.  After his career breakthrough in 1997 at the Jordi Barnadas Gallery in Consejo de Ciento, Olivares began showing his work internationally in cities such as Chicago, Los Angeles, Lyon, Milan, New Delhi, Paris, Perpignan, Toulouse and Turin. Miguel Olivares’ eye-catching murals appear in Barcelona, Madrid as well as Bogotá, Colombia and the Dominican Republic. One is left wondering exactly where Olivares will be seen next.