23.3.2018 > 10.6.2018
Ca n’Oliver, Maó
Francesc Hernández Mora (Maó, 1905 – Ciutadella, 1980) was the first Menorcan to use abstract language as a medium in art. His life consisted of the constant study of potential expression in drawing and subject matter: book illustration, xylography, crafting with leather, jewellery design, sculpture, painting etc.
In the forties and due to the general lack of understanding of his artistic approach in his hometown, he isolated himself in Ciutadella and launched a process of study and investigation, culminating in the sixties with an exhaustive production of abstract artwork, much of which is exhibited here. All drawings were donated by Antoni Seguí Parpal to the Maó City Hall in 2005, and this is the first time that they are being exhibited.
Monotypes, Figures and Patterns make up the three paths of abstract art which Hernández Mora nurtured. In Monotypes (painting applied on glass and transferred to paper) the main features combine the random with stains and colour. In Figures, it is blotches of ink with chiaroscuro and textured effect that create allegorical images with anthropomorphous shapes. Patterns introduces viewers to a huge symphony, where drawings of webs and nets, curved lines and magmatic shapes reveal a dynamic, expansive, rhythmic and graceful universe.
Today, the originality and force of his language inspires young artists like Macià Florit Campins, with his audiovisual work “Cerúlia i negra” [Black and cerulean], also unpublished.