Enric Majoral: The Lord of the Rings

Enric Majoral was born in 1949 in Sabadell (Barcelona). In 1972 he settled in Formentera, where he still lives and works most of the year. In its formation converge the setting inherited from the artisan father, the frequency of the Industrial Escola d’Art i Oficis of Sabadell, where he experimented different craft techniques, such as hand weaving and woodwork, and architectural firms. In 1974 in Formentera, he opened a workshop – shop that marks the beginning of an activity uninterrupted until today. Research and innovation are the constant availability of a process that evolves, that leaves behind the first production of the seventies, marked by a Baroque and oriental and that, in the eighties, points strongly to respect truth of materials and formal simplicity. Majoral is not interested to take this path: – I do not care so much express in formal language and allegory, how to achieve a style that is capable of shaping what interests me the jewel: its latent beauty. I always thought that it is in contact with the human skin that the gem takes its true dimension – So, handmade jewelry to be worn and not just to be exhibited in art galleries. On the other hand, Majoral warns the danger inherent in an industrial production of jewel: the standardization. Against this risk, the choice is for a handicraft production of quality, from a formal point of view, is evocative of simple and symbolic forms of primitive cultures. The eighties are very fertile, for the definition of a personal language. Are probed different soils: research on traditional jewels of the Pitiüses islands (Balearic Islands), research on the work of Alexander Calder, to which, as a tribute, Majoral devotes collezione.Nel 1996 Capelletes collection, the Capelletes name comes from a type of building , typical of Formentera, which is present to protect the water tanks and aljubs (troughs carved into the rock). It is so for the technical research material aspect of the jewel. Finishes, texture, surface roughness, which resemble certain spatial concepts of Lucio Fontana or certain Achrome Piero Manzoni, would not be possible without the artistic sensitivity of Enric Majoral. The Joes collection of sand (sand jewels) with its rough surfaces, is the obvious example of an expert search in that direction, a happy synthesis of stimuli from contemporary visual culture and strong Formentera Mediterranean nature.