ARTTYCO TALKS
Gil invites us to explore the porous nature of the human body—where memory, emotion, and matter dissolve into continuous transformation
ARTTYCO TALKS | July 06, 2025
EPISODE #2: GIL GELPI
1. Your sculptures often feel like they’re in motion—melting, growing, or transforming. What draws you to these organic, shifting forms? Do you see them as representing something emotional, philosophical, or entirely physical?
G: For me, everything that exists is part of one substance that is in a constantstate of transformation, always evolving into new shapes and forms. I see it almost as if the whole of existence is one giant organism that we are all a part of, and this organism combines everything, physicaly, emotionaly, energeticaly and so on. For this, I think that we are connected in many ways as part of subforms of this infinite Being that is our cosmos. This is why I create sculptures that are in a state of becoming, because I think that nothing is static; everything is moving, evolving, growing and transforming constantly. And for me, this process of becoming embraces every level of existence; every particle in the universe has a vibration, an energy, an emotion, and therefore, it has the potential of delving into philosophical and even political questions.
Close-up of sculpted hands — gestures of intimacy, memory, and pressure.
2. Some of your pieces are small and intimate, while others take over enti
re rooms. How does scale change the message or feeling you want to communicate?
G: I feel fascinated with the way our universe functions, the similarities between the macro and the micro cosmos, the way that planets and galaxies are created, and the way that atoms and particles behave. They seem like rhymes in the poetry of life, all part of the same dance. This is why I love experimenting in different scales, because they allow me to explore different perspectives in space. A very small sculpture has the potential of surprising us and changing everything around it, filling up a whole room, while a huge sculpture can seem insignificant depending on the context it is put in.
Sculpture has a presence; it occupies a certain amount of space, and therefore it transforms this space with its weight, its size, its vibration, and the way it interacts with light, reflecting it or creating shadows. Different sculptures, with different sizes, help create different spaces, emotionally, mentally, and energetically. I love exploring this capacity of transforming the space around us and, potentially, our own beings.
"Hombre verde con sustancia rosa" — A figure holds matter in flux: colorful, unstable, and vital.
"Sustancia amarilla" — Viscous form, autonomous and vibrant.
3. Many of your forms evoke a body—but not quite a human one. What interests you about the almost figurative?
G: This approach to the human figure comes from the willingness to explore the transformation potential we have. I truly believe that we can change and are changing constantly. Biologically, our organism is constantly regenerating cells and evolving internally, and mentally, our brain cells are constantly finding new connections, learning new things, and transforming our way of thinking and seeing the world around us. This is why in my work I try to evoke bodies in transformation, using abstract and organic forms to portray the potential that we have within us.
Inside Gil Gelpi’s studio — where gestures become bodies and material takes shape.
4. How do your pieces begin? With a sketch, a gesture, a material? Or is it more of a feeling?
G: I work in a very intuitive way; most of my sculptures start while I’m still finishing the last ones. I see it as a continuous flow where one thing leads to another; an accident that happens or something that you try can give you the idea for the next piece, and so on. Then there are also inputs from the outside that can spring new bodies of work. Now I’m currently working on the sphere as a unit of meaning and thought. This came from visiting the Museum of Science in Barcelona, where I came across an interactive device that recreated an inert isotropic environment where you could put an air bubble inside an inert liquid, and the air adopted a perfect sphere form because there are no forces that influenced it, like the form that planets and stars adopt in empty space. This led me to think that a substance, in its full potential, without external forces, would adopt the form of a sphere; and this led me to think about how we would be as humans if there were no outside forces, such as social and economic conditioning, to influence us. How would we be in our full potential?
"Abrazando mi cabeza" — A tender encounter with the self. Resin, 2023.
"Ecos del cuerpo I" — A mirrored presence carved in translucent layers. Resin, 2023.
5. Is there a particular emotion you hope viewers walk away with after encountering your sculptures?
G: For me, the main goal in art in general is to try to understand ourselves and the world around us using our intuition. I love artworks that transform you, that make you see or question things differently. Sometimes it can be disturbing, frightening, or even disgusting, but the comfort in having a living confrontation with an object that can transform us and take us somewhere else and show us beauty where we didn’t see it before is blissful. With my work I hope to provoke something in the viewer, and it might not be in his mind; it might be in his stomach or his lungs, for I think that we think not only with our brains but also with every part of our body.
"Gil Gelpi with his sculptures outside his Barcelona studio. A dialogue between bodies, textures, and scale
