Spanish, Contemporary, resin head with Murano glass and steel headdress, limited edition of 8.
Brought to The Walk by Opera Gallery
Artist – Manolo Valdés has developed a sculptural language that reimagines the history of portraiture through bold silhouettes, rich materials and a keen attention to the relationship between head and headdress. Across painting and sculpture he returns again and again to iconic feminine profiles, using metals, glass and resins to build crowns, mantillas and abstracted flora that read as both ornament and architecture, turning each figure into a luminous site of memory and projection.
Work - Blue Butterflies, 2024, originated when Valdés noticed a woman sunbathing with monarch butterflies swirling around her head in Central Park, an image that “kindled something” as Valdés told The New York Times. For The Sculpture Walk, Blue Butterflies offers a shared view of that remembered encounter, while opening the work to new, collective constellations of looking.